Bursting at the Seams

Q eat, sleeps, breathes hockey!!! Fine form, young man, fine form!

This morning I was up at 6:30, on a Saturday I think it's fair to point out, getting Q ready for his ball hockey game.  I think it's a cruel, cruel world that makes people wake up so early just to freeze in the bleachers, watching 6-8 year olds running around after a bright orange ball, listening to other parents yell instructions to their kids and obscenities at the coaches.

But here's the thing.  My kid is good!!!  He runs out on to the rink and other mothers cheer him on by name.  He gets in the middle of the action, he is the action.  He scores the goals, he defends his net, he centers the center.  I'm sitting there this morning, with my freezing feet on a wooden bleacher that is too high, so my legs dangle down and too straight, so my back aches...and I am so proud of my kid, I can hardly contain it.  Like so proud, I don't just want to cheer for him extra loud and make a complete fool out of myself (he says he can't hear it anyways), but soooooooo proud, I want to run out there, in the middle of the game, and hug him and kiss him and point to the top of his beautiful head and say:

"This kid, right here....he's my kid and he's incredible.  He's amazing!!  He blows my mind every.single.day and my life is so much richer because he's alive!!!!"

I didn't, because that would probably have embarrassed him maybe...a little.  But I really, really wanted to.  Instead, I sat there, completely calm-ish, as he scored the only goal for his team this morning.  Just as I did last week when, with 21 seconds left in the game, tied at 4, he scored the winning goal!  I'm bursting at the seams with pride for my kid, my offspring, he has my blood coursing through his veins.  It's incredible to me.

It's amazing, this love I have for him.  It's something I can't describe to him, and I don't know if he'll ever know how much I love him.  I tell him all the time, "I love you more than you'll ever know!" He often times will roll his eyes and says, "I do, too."  I'm so proud of the little man he is, and so excited for the future that is in front of him.