Lax it Up!

 About 6 years ago, my two younger boys asked to play a new sport.  

"Can we play lacrosse, mom?" It's really fun and we want to try it!"

When I asked about baseball, also a spring sport and one I had come to love, exhausting though it was, they assured me they could do both, since the overlap was only a month or so.

So with caution, we let them try it out.  Of course, the only team they could play on practiced and competed at a field 30 minutes away - three times a week.  My Tuesday and Thursday nights were now spent in the car (cold nights) or walking the nearby neighborhood (warm nights).  In between entertaining my younger daughter for those two hour practice slots, I got glimpses of this strange game.  I didn't understand much of it. . .my biggest takeaway was that there was a lot of whacking and hitting and running and scrambling for the ball.  And oh how I preferred to watch baseball!

Fast forward to this year. My eldest son is now a senior and he and his brother play on the same team for their high school.  Their last game was this week.  While there is still a lot I don't get about the game, I enjoy it so much more now.  I love to see my sons run down the field, shoot, and score.  I still think it's very violent and have been known to quietly say "Don't hit my baby!" to rough opponents.  But this season has been especially meaningful to me because it is the only year the boys have played on the same team.  

Maybe every mother would be this way, or maybe it's just me, being my usual sentimental self, but seeing the boys on the field together is the best thing ever. Watching them walk on and off the field together or confer during the game makes my heart so happy.  But my absolute favorite thing, as everyone who has sat with me during a game this year knows, is the Brotherly Passes. Many times during each game, one brother would pass to the other and I loved it every single time.  Brothers!  Brothers who lax it up together!  Brothers who look so strong and capable and old out there! Brothers who look out for each other! Brothers who are friends.

As each of our children has overlapped with a sibling in high school for a year or two, we've watched the relationship between those two siblings deepen.  These two brothers have spent two years of high school together, and playing lacrosse this year on the same team has been one of the many ways they've connected.  I'm thankful for this crazy, violent sport after all.