Wrestling

 We just took Andrew to his first wrestling tournament and we felt horribly out of place.

For one thing, I felt naked without any tattooed body art to decorate my bare skin.  I saw more moms with tattoos than I've ever seen.  I got a picture of this one from the lady sitting in front of us:

For another thing, we calmly watched Andrew's matches instead of yelling at him until our faces turned red and our veins popped out.  I guess we really need to learn how to get into the spirit of things--I mean peewee wrestling is serious stuff!

Andrew didn't fit in very well either because he never remembered to start bawling.  Many of the kids were crying from pain, defeat, or exhaustion.  Andrew just said, "When do I get to go again?"  (I have to admit, though, he got misty-eyed at the end when he learned they weren't handing out medals.) 


And we learned that we weren't teaching teaching Andrew correct principles.  From  behind us we could hear a booming father's voice instructing his son, "You see now, don't you?  These kids aren't your friends.  You have to be gruff with them!  Now what are you going to do when you go back out there?"  The kid answered in his tiny voice, "Go for the froat!" 

I was so surrounded by testosterone that I felt like I was swimming in it with all the muscle shirts, tattoos, beards, piercings, aggression, competition, physical contests, and power struggles.

I giggled a few times at the madness, but I was glad to get out in the fresh air and breath a little when it was all over.