The boys have the best grandparents. Opa and Oma drove ten hours
on Friday to watch them play in the soccer tournament in Atlanta. Ten hours! I
think they found it worth the drive. I mean who wouldn't when you get to spend
the weekend with my boys? Two wins, a tie and the end to an undefeated season
were all just icing on the cake.
These grandparents draw the line at the mention of dinner at Chuck E Cheese or
an hour at a bounce house, though. We ditched the team Saturday night because I
too have a great dislike of over-sized mice singing and dancing in a mechanical
country music jamboree, and the five of us had dinner on our own. The boys
thought we were cruel to keep them from the bounce house and their teammates,
so we compromised. We took Evan to Target to buy the board game Monopoly. He
has wanted the game for two years, and because I remember playing it myself, I
have said no to the purchase many times. Don't think for a second that while
standing on the board game aisle of Target I didn't suggest a dozen other games
in lieu of Monopoly because, as I am sure you know, it is the game that never
stops, or as I call it, The Time Monopolizer.
After we got back to the hotel last night, it took us half an hour to
just hand out money and explain the meaning of a thimble, (and no, Keagan, the
thimble is not a pot). After another half hour of explaining to Evan the
meaning of mortgage, I started thinking an hour at a bounce house with hundreds
of screaming kids was probably not all that bad, and because that hour at the
bounce house would come to an end a lot quicker than a game of Monopoly, I was
certain, an hour or two too late, that the bounce house would have been a much
wiser choice.
I want to remember this weekend
for reasons other than the hell of a monopoly marathon, though. I want to
remember Keagan walking onto the field, marking up on the tallest kid on the
opposing team and hearing the Jaguar team gasp when he started running. I want
to remember his throwing himself in front of this guy so that he could block an
attempted shot on the goal and block a pass to the guy playing right forward.
I want to remember his standing on the field during a time-out and
striking up a conversation with the enemy with the comment, "It sure is
chilly out here." And observing the two from the sideline as Keagan
continued with a monologue about the very cold weather, UnderArmour shirts, and
the need to run to stay warm. All the while, number 23 stared in disbelief.
I want to remember Evan's aggressive playing, his fancy footwork,
and the random comment he made about this female player and her crocheted hat.
"Casey and I decided that girl talks funny and wears a funny hat so she
must be from the Netherlands." Who knew you had to have a grandma that
crochets ugly brown hats to be from the Netherlands?
It was a great weekend of soccer and I was sorry to leave it all
behind. It was especially hard to walk off the field knowing I had a four hour
drive in the car and then another marathon monopoly game awaiting me at home.
Tonight's game winning strategy is to give the roll of the dice a good half
hour, buy as many hotels as possible, and then whimper a despondent cry of
"I think I am going to have to declare bankruptcy!" Wish me
luck! 
