Are you ready for some football?

My husband introduced me to football. I never really watched football except for a Super Bowl or two in my youth, but when I moved in with my husband I realized pretty quickly this was going to become a staple of our livelihood. My mother bought me a pillow that says: "We now interrupt this marriage to bring you football season." It is very true. Now it might read: "...interrupt this family..."

I figured out how serious he was when we missed one of our four nights in Walt Disney World to watch a playoff game at ESPN Zone. I caught on real quick, got myself a Troy Brown jersey, and fell in love with the idea of sitting on the couch all day Sunday, watching TV, eating various bad for you foods and drinking copious volumes of alcohol without anyone batting an eyelash. Looking at football this way, of course, made it great big fun. And, thanks to my enlightened look, my husband's friend's wives also found football to be a great time. Cheers to me! Glass always half full on Sunday!

I even took it one step further. How do I combine this newfound love with my love of travel? Well, a dare to my husband. Can we see the Patriots play in every stadium across the country (except for Oakland, who wants to go there?). To date, we have been to 8 stadiums, and I have seen some pretty cool places. From Nashville, to Miami, to San Francisco and San Diego. And last year, we brought Joel Andrew to his first game, in Chicago!
All seems to be going well, except when you add yet another child into the mix, it makes watching football that much more difficult. A toddler that no longer sits still for the games, and does not understand why we are not watching Mickey. A baby that pukes all over and does not want to sit still either. We thought we would make a party of it and have the Kings over yesterday. 6 boys, two Moms and a football game.
It was a great time. But it was chaos. I have to say, it was one of the first times I totally let Joel Andrew be, he is in the other room with Declan - that's cool. He is outside by himself, he won't go far... And it was true, they had a great time. There were some questionable moments with toys flying through the air at the other toddler's head, but we laughed that off to mistake...

Us Moms tried to maximize Man-time at the TV and we brought the boys outside for a while. A strategically timed James nap allowed for Joel Husband to have plenty of TV time. But once I heard that Red Zone announcer on, I knew they were in commercial break and Man time was over... Time to help, Dads!

Again, it was a great time. It is fun to watch Declan and Joel grow and like to be together. And scary to look at Nolan and James now and think in a few short years they will be doing the same. Sooner or later these boys have to get interested in the football game though, right? Because Mommy actually misses watching it too!