It’s Sunday. Game day.
Open your eyes and take a deep breath of that chilly breeze blowing through your window. Your friends are picking you up in an hour to go tailgate. Get up and start to get ready! Have a beer while you shower. Go ahead. Nobody’s stopping you, and that shower beer is the perfect way to start Sunday Funday. It’s so cold and refreshing, competing with the warm steam of the shower. Ahhh. Living the dream. Just loving life and enjoying a shower beer.
Do your hair so that it still looks good under a knitted hat. Select an outfit that makes you look cute, clearly distinguishes you as a hot Chicago Bears fan and keeps you warm enough at the same time. Perfection. Now fill up a big travel mug with coffee and Bailey’s, throw ice on the orange and blue jello shots in the cooler and jump in the truck when your friends pull up.
Are you ready for some football?!?!
HELL YES. SUNDAY FUNDAY. BEAR DOWN, CHICAGO!!!
Now fast forward 5 years……
I wake up to little people who need a lot all at once. I chug hot, black coffee even thought it is burning my tongue. I remember the coffee-and-Bailey’s-Sundays fondly for a fleeting moment, but I don’t even have any hard liquor in the house. I sigh and google the Bear’s schedule between pouring glasses of milk, because I actually don’t even know when and who they play this week. (It’s not that I don’t care! I had to re-prioritize everything when I became a mommy. I literally have no time to worry about sports anymore.) Turns out they don’t play until Monday night. Oh well. Come noon, my husband will sit in front of the TV and multiple computer screens, so wrapped up in a combination of his fantasy team and work that the house could burn down around him and he wouldn’t notice. I take the kids to the zoo, because the house feels like a zoo anyway.
Bye Sunday Funday….Probably forever.
Tears. Grief. Mourning.
I am a mommy who was once a fan. A true fan. I loved tailgating outside Soldier field. I loved high-fiving other super fans in the stands after every touch down. I loved watching the entire game, uninterrupted, with everyone at the local sports bar. I loved knowing the players stats, who got traded and who was injured. I just loved to breathe that crisp fall air because it meant football, food, beer and fun. Daaaa Bears!
Were you a mom who was once a fan too?
I wholeheartedly understand this dilemma. You are not alone.
Ten Things Only Moms Who Used To Be Super Fans Can Understand:
1. Attending the game is only fun until you are exhausted.
Let’s be real – I can’t keep up with my cool, hip, childless friends. After two beers during the tailgate, I feel nice and toasty. After two more beers in the stadium, I need to lay down. I have to pace myself. Stay hydrated. I also can’t forget to swing by the ATM to pay the babysitter later, because I somehow already spent all my cash. Was it always 10 bucks a beer at Soldier Field? No wonder I was broke in my twenties. I supposed I could always play it smart and stay sober, but that also equals being the caretaker and designated driver for all those Sunday Funday clowns I came here with. No thanks. I’ll take my chances with beer.
2. I can just watch the game with a few friends at a sports bar!
Brilliant plan, imbecile. See #1.
3. Staying home to watch the game doesn’t really work either.
I try to catch a play or two in-between prepping dinner, folding laundry and granting fruit snack requests every 15 minutes. I might also attempt to enjoy a hard cider before somebody knocks it over and I have to clean the carpet.
4. Let’s bring the kids with to the game! It will be fun!
Oh sure! Really fun! Because dropping a couple hundred bucks to haul around a backpack full of snacks and sippy cups, celebrate touchdowns by holding a toddler over the potty, play musical stadium chairs and apologize repeatedly to everyone around you sounds like an epic time. Said no one. Ever.
5. Family-friendly doesn’t apply to Buffalo Wild Wings on football Sundays.
Because now you have a baby. In a bar.
6. Your husband has magical powers.
The outside world doesn’t exist to him from 11:59 AM Sunday until 12:01 AM Monday. He can tune out the entire household. He will be mentally gone for 12 full hours, and will sometimes resurface from football land to find beer and food. Don’t even try to wake him from this Cinderella spell. It is only more energy wasted on your part. It is him and his fantasy teams. Why he was granted this freedom and you were not is an eternal mystery, but at least his roster is pretty stacked! Let’s hope he wins some big cash this season!
7. Every other commitment you have seems to fall on Sunday afternoon at kickoff.
You are an adult now. You have adult things to attend, and you can’t flake out like you did when you were 22 years old. Wedding showers, baby showers, birthday parties, family reunions, etc. – Be there or be square! Better hope your phone has decent service so you can get score updates, provided you have a minute to check it without looking rude as hell.
8. Don’t throw a Sunday Funday party. Just don’t.
At least once during football season, we all get the brilliant idea that throwing a party for the Bears game is going to be fun. It’s not. Now instead of watching the game you are cooking, cleaning and helping to take care of your friends’ kids. You suddenly remember why you swore not to do this again last year, and admit that next year it will probably sound like a good idea again. Oh well. At least I got to try out a new buffalo chicken recipe from Pinterest! Go Bears!
9. You don’t even know who half the team is anymore.
I haven’t watched the NFL draft for three years running. I vaguely remember Pat Tomasulo recapping what was going on with the Bear’s roster on the news while I made breakfast one day. None of the details remained in my brain. I save face by making fun of Jay Cutler. Because at least everybody can agree on hating Cutler.
10. You still have the cutest Bears apparel, but it is just collecting dust in the back of your closet.
Someday I will bust that tight little women’s jersey back out and Instagram the hell out of a game day selfie. Someday. After my boob job and tummy tuck.
See? I told you that you weren’t alone, my fellow fan who became a Mommy! I am down in the trenches with you, fighting the good fight from one football Sunday to the next.
It is going to turn out OK for us, I promise.
In a few years, the kids will be old enough to sit through a game. We can enjoy our football Sundays as a family. We can get out of the house to watch football games at Buffalo Wing Wings without stares full of judgement. We can take the kids to Bears games without backpacks full of baby crap. We can take them tailgating, teach them how to play bags like pros and eat Chicago style hot dogs with our tailgate neighbors. We can cheers water bottles and even eat blue and orange jello together. (This time without the vodka.) It will get better, and until it does, we can hold on to the carefree, glorious memories we have of our super fan days.
If we raise these kids right, they will probably be super fans just like their respectable mommies!
And really…..What more could you ask for?
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