The Day Jerry Rice Jr. Got Taken Down

I have another busy week and am just not feeling motivated to write so blog postings might be sparse this week. However, I have several posts in my “drafts” folder I never published so here’s one of them about Bode’s near-death experience late last summer…..

We’re going on our seventh year of being in our dinner group with friends from church. We’ve experienced everything from the humiliation of Halloween to when Groucho and Marilyn did murder. Last month, the festivities sunk to a new level.

Usually, our dinners just involve couples but a couple of times a year, we bring the kids together for a big ol’ party–no small undertaking because the six couples have 24 kids between them.

And yes, we are the underachievers in the group.

The first of those kids was college-bound so we planned a final picnic at a park near our house. It was a fun evening of good friends and fun as the kids played on the nearby playground until after dark. After dinner, we opted for a friendly game of kickball in the neighboring field.

Only it wasn’t quite so friendly.

You see, some of these people are competitors and make me look like Pollyanna comparatively. Bode was the youngest out of all the kids by two years and certainly the most overzealous, thrilled to catch the ball and run with it.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him he wasn’t Jerry Rice.

It all started going downhill when Hadley’s friend Alex went up to “bat.” You see, headstrong Alex and I have history. She talks smack, I dish it back. I once sang, “Girl, you’re amazing” to her at the top of my lungs in the grocery store because it’s her goal to be on America’s Got Talent and I was just showing her what it takes.

OK, so maybe I just wanted to embarrass her.

Anyway, back to kickball. Alex looked at me with her little beady eyes and I knew she was mine. The ball was rolled, she kicked it and it soared straight toward me. I leaped, caught it and she was out. In one gratifying moment, it was me vs. Alex and for once, I won.

And then her family cried foul. “She’s just a little girl!!!!” and revenge was sworn.

Problem is it wasn’t against me but against Jerry Rice Jr. The next time sweet Bode was up to bat, he kicked the ball. As he started to race to first base, Alex’s brothers–allegedly upstanding young men, Eagle Scouts and BYU-bound–nailed sweet Bode with the ball. H-A-R-D.

These photographs are not of The Incident, which means there was more than one because photos don’t lie. Brother #1:Brother #2:
As the Evil Ones rejoiced after Bode’s forcible take-out, their Head Evil One (their father, Phil), said, “Thank your Mommy for that, Bode.”

He came over to me and said in the most innocent voice, “Thank you for dat, Mommy!!”