Friday Night Football

We spent Friday night at the local High School football game.  Our amazing Respite Care person comes on Fridays, so we choose that night to do something that the girls will enjoy.  They always grumble when we get there; they aren’t exactly football fans.  I mean, Madison loves to play the game, but unless Drew Brees is playing she is only vaguely interested.  Sydney, she likes USC.  Both girls prefer their games live, though Madison only gets the Saints on TV.  And she rarely gets to play anymore, which is really kind of a bummer.

So after their fair share of grumbling quietly, the girls took off to talk with friends and enjoy the social aspect of the football game, though Madison was pretty aware of the game itself.  Eric and I found a spot in the stands and enjoyed a really fun game of football.  In between watching the game and cheering, I watched the stands: my kids, other kids, and parents.  I used to wonder if I was going to feel like we were missing out on something because Bradley isn’t going to be playing football or baseball like those boys.  I use to watch my nephews play and feel so proud of them, so honored to be related, so thrilled to have someone to cheer for on the teams.  I have to admit that the games are just more fun when you have someone you know playing.  We cheered for the home team and their female kicker because that’s just way cool to break those roles.

High school kids don’t really change that much.  The jocks, the nerds, the popular kids, the shy kids.  The ones that go to the games because they fit in and the ones that go even though they don’t fit in.  My girls go to a school that doesn’t have sports so for school spirit football games they come to their neighborhood school, and since Sydney plays volleyball there, at least they feel a little bit of a connection.  And they have plenty of friends that they enjoy catching up with every once in a while.  So while Eric and I watched the game, the girls enjoyed a small reunion with some of the kids that they’ve gone to school with for awhile.

The irony is this: someday down the road, this will likely be the school that Bradley will have to transition to for High School.  The girls go to a school with a tiny special education presence, they have kids there with their IEPs, but they have no dedicated classrooms.  So Bradley is most likely to attend the more traditional high school; and probably someday, Eric and I will be taking Bradley to watch his high school football team play on Friday nights.  There is another alternative school which would isolate him so much we really don’t want that for him, but with his medical needs, he might not have an option.   And I imagine that my view will be much the same as it is now.   There will be the same kind of girls dressing as scantily as possible to attract the boys, the boys trying to get something illegal and not paying too much attention to the girls because they are all dressed the same, the parents that have a super star player on the field and what everyone to know about it, and then the occasional fan like us, just there to watch the game.

At the end of the night, the girls claimed they had fun, they always end up having fun despite the grumpy starts.  When Bradley is old enough, I can only wonder if he will even have an interest in going, will he be at this school, this type of school, or if he’ll be shuttled off somewhere else.  If this becomes his school will he be welcomed, will he be mocked, will he enjoy his time at a football game or will Friday’s doing anything else in the world be more his style?

We’ll know when we get there and figure it all out on the way.  For now, I watch the girls and how they interact with their friends, and I enjoy some football.  All the while knowing that Bradley is safe at home playing with his toys, watching his movie and getting to bed at the same relative bedtime as every other day.  That certainly helps make the night a lot more fun all the way around.