In my lifetime I have only been to about two wrestling matches. I know virtually nothing about wrestling. To me it just looks like a couple of guys [or kids] rolling around on a big mat. And up until recently I couldn’t have cared less about wrestling.

Growing up I wasn’t a girly girl. I didn’t like to wear dresses or carry a purse or wear makeup or any of that. But I also wasn’t a tomboy. I didn’t want to climb trees and I hated sports. I didn’t want to watch or participate in sports.

But God blessed me with four boys. Four boys who really enjoy sports. They enjoy watching football with dad. Justis plays football and baseball. Keaton plays soccer, basketball and baseball and Caleb cannot wait to be old enough to participate.

And now that Spencer is in kindergarten he is getting in to sports. He played soccer in the fall and now he is really loving wrestling.

Our kids go to a school that is…how should we say it?…wrestling CRAZY. They’ve been state champs for like 400 years. Ok, maybe not 400. But they were conference champions every year from like 1987 to 1997 or so. And they take their wrestling very seriously. You can join the wrestling club when you are in preschool. Yes, you read that right. Preschool. They start them out young.

Wrestling is a whole new experience for me. It’s not like soccer or basketball or baseball or football. With those sports there is one game to watch and your kid is part of a team. Although they are a team, wrestling is very much an individual sport. When the little kids are wrestling there are eight matches going on at the same time. Then there is a lot of sitting around waiting for everybody else to finish before your kid’s next match.

And some of the parents are insane. During Spencer’s second match I could see a parent across the mat [at another match] with his face beet red, sweating, pounding on the mat and hollering commands at his kid. Holy cow. Take a chill pill dude. I made a comment about him to Lee and Lee said there was a woman who was escorted out earlier because she was five feet on to the mat yelling at her kid. Jeez. Calm down.

During Spencer’s third [and final] match, the mother of the other kid was yelling out commands, but she was actually fairly calm about it. Lee had run to the bathroom and missed the first few moments of the match. Since I was the only one there to cheer Spencer on I wanted to holler out too, but I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know the rules of wrestling so I didn’t know if I should tell him to get behind the kid or get his feet up or what. So instead I just stood there.

In any event, Spencer had a great time. He LOVES wrestling. After he lost the second match we had to have a little talk about how there is no crying in wrestling, but he’s getting better every match. He got a pretty awesome metal for coming in fourth place in his bracket. Granted there were only four kids in his bracket, but still. As you can see from the smile on his face, Spencer didn’t care. In fact the whole day Spencer had a huge smile on his face. Lee kept telling him, “when you’re on the mat those kids aren’t your friends so give them your angry face.” But that’s just not in Spencer’s nature. Even in a headlock he had a huge smile on his face. It was so funny to watch. I’m so proud of him.