Basketball Season

Last week, the school basketball season began. We now have anywhere from two to five days a week devoted to ballgames. While I love watching the boys play ball, I don't get into it quite as much as they and Donnie do. Perhaps it's that basketball isn't nor has it ever been, my sport. I love baseball and football and have tried to learn everything I can about those games. However, we never watched basketball in my house and well, I'm not exactly basketball material on the court. I don't really know what constitutes a foul in basketball, I have no idea how one person can be called for a walk while another can do what looks like the same thing and go on without turning the ball over.

It's for this reason that I no longer sit with Donnie at the basketball games. To him, it's all a foul. If for any reason, it looks even closely like a foul, he wants it called. I don't get it. I will give him this, he's a lot less vocal than he was last year during basketball season but, he's still too vocal for me. While I like watching the kids play, I'll admit, the big draw is having an excuse to spend a couple hours with friends I wouldn't normally get to see so often. I have no problem owning up to the joy ball season gives me because well, I don't get out much unless it's for work or the kids.

Beyond that, it's nice that we have something we can do as a family. Even Bobby comes to Richie and Hunter's games. To me that's a very big deal. More than the fact that both little boys love to have him there, is that at 17 he chooses to be there to support them. How many teenagers would give up time from their social calendar to be there for their younger siblings, without a parent mandate? I have to hand it to him, he's even up for Hunter's 9am games on Saturdays. Those are games that even I've considered skipping.

The season will most likely wear on us all as it goes on. It means Richie and Hunter have no spare time on game nights because they'll have to get through homework and dinner before going to their games. Game nights are later bedtimes and quick showers as to not push bedtime back any further. Saturdays are often early mornings and late nights since both Bobby and Hunter play for the day with hours separating the games. Still, this is our last year to have Bobby with us through the season. Next year he'll go off to college and we'll enter into a whole new challenge, college and little league football games, sometimes on the same days. Even then, I won't be sitting with Donnie in the stands!