The Sports

Saturday night, I was home with the kids while Mike was at his own hockey game. Dec asked if he could put on his hockey gear and play goalie in the basement. I said "sure." Then Quinn got wind of this and decided to put her gear on as well. Soon enough, a knee hockey game broke out in my basement.

They very sweetly invited Fiona to participate. She was the "cheerer" and the announcer - and apparently the ref and timekeeper. At one point, she announced that it was "halftime." I promptly informed her that there is, in fact, no halftime in hockey. She ignored me. Then after halftime, she dropped the puck by saying "hut hut hike." I suspect [hope] that was just to sass me.

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I do blame the halftime comment on the fact that we actually made the Super Bowl an event at our house this year. Turns out, certain five-year-old boys in the public school system had very strong opinions about the game and which team should win. I was told I was cheering for the Chiefs. I may have had to ask said opinionated 5-year-old who was playing. When I learned that the Chiefs QB was the son of a former Twins pitcher, I was good with my assigned team.

We ate dinner downstairs at the bar and piled on to the big sectional to watch the game. There were chips and top the tator (so a real party) as well as all the fruit Declan could eat. At some point during the first half, each of our kids separately asked what a quarterback was. Quinn is clearly a hockey player and was quite annoyed when it took sweet forever to all the players to line up, only for no forward progress to be made. Several times, she said "that was it?" So while our football knowledge was lacking, we all agree that it was a really fun event to mark together.

We let them stay up through the halftime show so they could be culturally relevant at school the next day. Except for the fact that they had no idea who Shakira or J. Lo were. Nonetheless, they enjoyed it. And Dec was thrilled the next morning when he wandered into my room and I told him the Chiefs won. He was slightly less annoyed that it was Monday.

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This weekend was "south metro exchange weekend" for Mite hockey. Dec played in Prior Lake on Saturday and volunteered to play goalie for the first game. Mike volunteered to be bench coach, which D loved as well. Dec was proud of how he played in goal and enjoyed being out of goal for game 2. They even did a shoot out at the end of the game - and he scored!!

Sunday found Mike and Quinn driving to New Prague, very early in the morning, in near whiteout conditions. Mike texted me when they got there that he had seen one plow - in the ditch. It was an adventure, but well worth the crappy roads. Quinn had the best time and played really well. Apparently she did skate into the net at one point - so they tell me.

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The best thing about super early morning hockey for everyone on Sunday is that we were done with hockey by 10:30am. Which meant we had the rest of the day to play in the fresh snow (more on that later). At one point, as Q walked up the hill with her snowboard over her shoulders, her hat pulled down over her eyes, and completely covered in snow, our neighbor Mike said "everything about Quinn screams X Games." And our brains exploded a little bit.

In not our brightest parenting move, we showed the kids a few videos of Shaun White snowboarding. Later, Dec told me that he was going to be just like Shaun White. Only not. Because his tricks were going to be different and better and harder. He also asked to take both skateboard and snowboard lessons. And said that instead of asking Santa for yogurt next Christmas, he's going to ask for goalie pads. It may be going awry here!