WHY DOES MY SON CARE ABOUT A SPORTS TEAM, and WHY DID I SWITCH HIM OUT OF THE YESHIVISH CLASS?

Gratitude List

1) kids devoured supper

2) it didn’t snow enough to make driving scary and school canceled

3) Sarah had a girl — and I don’t have to wake up early to go to a bris

Can I make an Ungrateful List, or a “thought I was grateful but now I’m not” list? It’s confusing. I feel like Someone Upstairs is messing with me. Switching Gavi’s class seemed like the best thing since a Shabbos nap but now I feel like an old sheitel that looks like a bird’s nest.

He came home yesterday and asked me for football gloves — clueless me has no idea what he’s talking about.

“It makes you catch the football better — it has grippy things on it.”

First, I’m thinking, since when does he play football? Then, why does he need accessories, what happened to just balls and imagination? Apparently everyone in his new class plays football. His old class played dodgeball and basketball. Fine, not sure why they need gloves, but whatever. I checked on Amazon at work today for football grip gloves; I didn’t even know what I was searching for. There was a price range — and sue me, I bought the $15 ones.

I told Gavi when I got home, thinking I’d get a mother-of-the-year prize, but no, instead he asks me, “What team?”

“Team?” I was so confused.

“Yeah, what team is on the gloves?”

“There’s no team on the gloves. I think it has a black and white swirl design.”

“I wanted the one with the Giants!”

That was a jaw-drop moment. Did he just name a professional sports team, and not just say it, but that he wanted a product of theirs?

I could ask in clutch-my-pearls shock where my darling son picked up these shtusim from, but I knew the answer: I put him there.

“Do other boys in your class have teams?” I tried for nonchalant, but I don’t think my voice is ever in that pitch range.

“Yeah, everyone.”

“So, like four kids?”

“No, everyone.”

“Five?”

Gavi looked at me and then started counting on his fingers.

“Sixteen.”

Ouch, that’s out of like 23.

“But I already ordered gloves for you.”

“Can’t you cancel them, or return them?”

Yeah, but…. That really wasn’t the point. I made myself take deep breaths and tried to escape. I gave him a vague, “We’ll see.”

I would have talked it over with Yussie when he came home, but he came home so late and so tired, it was not worth trying to have a conversation about anything real, or that we might argue about. That dumb I’m not.

So now I’m writing in my dumbo daily journal, wondering, WHY DOES MY SON CARE ABOUT A SPORTS TEAM, and WHY DID I SWITCH HIM OUT OF THE YESHIVISH CLASS, and WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT THE DUMB GLOVES?