Friday, December 12, 2008

What Every Mother Wants To See

I had a totally new experience tonight. I was a spectator at a wrestling tournament. Adam's been working out with the team for the past few weeks--except for when his injured foot was healing, and his split lip was congealing (stitched together by his dad)--and this was his first meet. He asked that I not bring the camera and when I saw his outfit, I knew why.

From a total newbie perspective, it's got to be the ugliest sport ever invented as evidenced by this:


And that was just the warm-ups. The official pummeling started soon after. When it was my son's turn to strut up to the mat in his singlet, I did something like this:


And through my fingers I saw my handsome son's head like this:


and his arm like this:


and his leg like this:


But then suddenly Adam did a very strong man move like this:


and what did Sarah Palin say about hockey moms? Because I instantly morphed into this:



"Oh yeah! Take him down!"


Which he didn't, but it was still impressive. So, wrestling is not pretty. Not even slightly pretty, but I may learn to enjoy it. In a barbaric, Day-at-the-Colosseum kind of way.

5 comments:

Terynn said...

My son was a four sport athlete all through high school---football, wrestling, track and baseball. That's a whole lotta bleacher butt for this mom.

By FAR, my favorite sport to cheer for was wrestling!!! Love. it. In Iowa, it's the official state sport (but you already know that, having lived in Iowa). Right?

Wrestling is so easy for this mom to follow; there's only two kids out there and one of them was mine! No ball to scan down the field, no waiting for three hours for a 100 yard dash, no baseball boredom.

I would stomp, whistle and scream so loudly through the close matches (and my son's, of course), that I would think I was going to burst an aneurysm in my foolish head. No joke.

And one time (and I am soooo not proud of this), I actually yelled to my son, during a tight match, "K!ll him!) and then clamped my heand over my mouth, horrified.

Yeah. Not my finest sportsmanship moment. It *does* bring out the pit bull in moms, huh?

Lisa said...

Yep, yep....you know I'm a wrestling mama too these days, Miss Eileen...and I can totally relate. In fact, I've been unofficially banned from attending the meets by my son, who was mortified by my enthusiastic cheering. :)

Nine is Fine said...

Just wait until you see me at a tournament, Eileen. You'll probably want to pretend you don't know me. Oh, and Alina's even worse. At Jake's first 8th grade match, she shrieked from the top of the stands, "Bite him! Scratch him!" I told her those weren't legal moves and advised her to yell supportive comments only. - Obviously, she was slightly traumatized watching her brother's first match! I love being a mat mom. I used to live at wrestling tournaments when my brothers wrestled in high school. I think it will grow on you. :)

Laura L. said...

Hello! I'm so glad you stopped by my blog recently. It's always so fun to meet others.
I was scrolling through your posts and have to say that I really love the one about the girls with Santa. I love what you wrote about it. So funny!

Anonymous said...

Jarrod did wrestling when we were in Oregon. Let's just say that it was just a little too... intense. In our little town wrestling was BIG and people took it SERIOUSLY. People didn't have a whole lot of money in our area, but people could manage to afford wrestling mats put into their houses worth thousands of dollars. The high school had won dozens of trophies through the years and was VERY proud of it. They start the kids out at 3 and 4 years of age and kids try so hard that they literally get sick from exertion. The last straw for us was when we saw a grandma YELLING at her 4 year old grandson to JUST SUCK IT UP AND GET BACK OUT THERE!!!!!!!!! He was crying and crying. Jarrod liked wrestling pretty much until we sent him to a summer camp which was more like a boot camp for wrestling. Hopefully Adam will fare better. It sounds like he's doing great! Now I know what to bribe him with! --Sneaking into a meet and taking a picture! Thanks! Well, sorry to write so much, this is long enough to be on my own blog! I absolutely love yours.