So, if you are a dedicated reader and saw at the end of the Hair post yesterday that my son took third place at the Bush Brawl, then you're already one-up on everyone else. Everyone else...he took third place and I am SO PROUD! Not only that, but we bought him brand new wrestling shoes this year, only to have him declare Dean's high school shoes the best he's ever worn. These are from circa 1989, seven years OLDER than Koy himself!
How many of you are wrestling momma's? If any of you have wrestling sons (or daughters), boxing, karate-ing, and other savage viking sports like that where you watch as a referee allows another person's kid to beat your kid up then this is for you!
I have some serious, and I mean SERIOUS momma bear syndrome. I mean, my PARENTS can't even yell at my kids without my blood boiling! I have to restrain myself every day, when someone else disciplines my kids. I'm just being honest, too. I am very grateful that people scold my kids when I am not around. If they had free range to do whatever they pleased, then I'd be in for a world of hurt down the road when I said NO! But that doesn't mean that I'm not counting to ten in my head while I'm smiling and saying, "Thank you for doing that," to the community member.
I don't know why that is. Maybe because I was the one who grew them inside me, I was the one who nursed them and changed them and took care of them when no on else was there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an umbrella mom, I just have Momma Bear syndrome, that's all.
So when I have to sit on the bleachers and watch as some kid continually elbows my son in the back of the head and the Ref not blow his stupid whistle, I lose it. We videoed my son's matches with our little camcorder and we have to watch it on mute. I'll have to put some music in the background, because its almost embarrassing to hear my sisters and I yelling! I blame the Finnish blood cursing through our veins.
Friday Koy wrestled two matches, the first one, he managed to pin the kid pretty quickly. I can't tell you which moves he did, because I don't even know anything except, "Crossface!" (So, guess what I was yelling the WHOLE time?! My poor son!) Then his second match he ended up either catching a knee, or a forehead on his head and lightly passing out. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to run over to the mat and grab my 5'7" 125 lb. 14 year old baby! So, anyway, he lost that match but didn't suffer from a concussion so that was great news!
After going home at 10:00 p.m., he had to get up by 6:00 am for 7:00 am weigh ins. They gave them a +2 weight limit, meaning if he was in the 125 weight class, he could weigh 127 on Saturday. (I just learned all this stuff, so bear with me if you already know!) He was supposed to wrestling the consolation rounds starting around 10:00am-ish, so I went back home and went to sleep.
At 9:00 am, I got a text from his BFF saying he was wrestling NOW! So, I quickly (And I mean QUICKLY) put on a pair of shoes and a jacket, called Elsa and drove over to get her while we rushed to the gym. By the time we arrived, we watched him walking over to the score booth at the end of the match. (Which means he won, cause they have to sign the slip at the booth!)
Throughout the day we sat on the hard bleachers waiting and waiting and waiting for the wrestle-backs. Every hour or so, when we were ready to leave, they would say, "In the hole on mat 1, 125 weight class, Koy Johnson and Blah Blah." (Except they kept saying Koy JohnsTon)
And then we'd sit back down and wait some more. The waiting wasn't too bad, since we had THREE mats going at once and the weight classes ranged from 45 lb Kindergarteners to heavyweights in high school. My BFF and Best Woman (Matron of Honor?) and her family came up for the weekend so Tarren could wrestle. Tarren was my Flower Boy(?) he walked with Kaisa in our wedding. His dad was one of Dean's groomsmen. Tarren won the 45 lb weight class.
(P.S. you guys think I'm a good seamstress, I have NOTHING on Danielle! She MADE Tarren's singlet! Made it. Crazy good sewer!)
There was really only one match I was mad about though. I was so mad that I went over to the coach after the match and told him exactly how I felt about coaching kids to think that that was OK. He pretended not to know what I was talking about until I said, "We have it on video," and walked away.
The match was against my son and his guy was pretty squirmy and hitting Koy's head. But I was told that that's normal, you do things like that to "piss off your opponent" (according to my husband) and luckily Koy doesn't get upset that easily. Anyway, we started to notice that whenever the ref would blow his whistle because they were out of bounds, that once the ref turned away, the kid would elbow Koy in the back of the head. We were yelling about it, and I think even Koy's coach noticed it. I watched the other coach and he sat there with a smirk on his face because his kid was ahead. Of course, I blew up. I mean seriously, all of us in the stands blew up.
This continued on until finally the ref called the kid for an illegal move and the only thing someone could yell was, "Yeah, YOU!" And my normally smily kid (he SMILES during his matches you guys!) who has no temper in the world was MAD. I think I heard myself say, "Oh no, he's is MAD, I wonder what's going to happen...."
Well, we found out what would happen if you make my kid mad. On the whistle he turned, flipped the kid instantly and held him there in a CHOKE HOLD, (I don't know what its called, but that's what it LOOKED like to me!) gritting his teeth and with a snarl on his face! He pinned him and got up, nonchalantly walked over, took off his colored band around his ankle, held out his hand and...SMILED at the kid.
After that, he won his last match for third after his teammates told him that he was gonna get WHIPPED by the kid. We are all so proud of him! The way he handled himself, and the way he shook it off afterward and just focused on the matches. Even his own teammates are awesome. They wrestle each other, and are still best friends after the matches offering advice during the match to each other. Sigh...
Ahh.... High School Wrestling, I have a love-hate relationship with it!
4 comments:
yes my dear Finnskimo, I am a "momma bear" of a wrestler too, I didn't make it to the Brawl, but was listening on KOTZ!! holy smokes, in between shushing my husband and yelling for our son, it was exciting to listen too. He did place 2nd, which is better than he did last year!!
Good Job Koy !!
AWESOME! Great display of Sportsmanship on Koy's part! And skill too!
Wrestling is not a sport I ever had an interest in doing or watching when I was in HS. However, both my Father, and my Husband were High School wrestlers. I was talking to him about there being a girl on Koy's apposing team and he said that kind of started at his school when he was wresting. We were talking about it, and I was saying that it has to be hard, and I bet she won a lot when our 6 year old walked in. Our sweet boy said "Why would it be hard?" and my husband said "Because most of us learned that it's not ok to hurt girls. We had one guy on our team that apparently never learned that and beat the crap out of her every time though." Our son replied "That's really mean".
"I have some serious, and I mean SERIOUS momma bear syndrome. I mean, my PARENTS can't even yell at my kids without my blood boiling!" - Me too! My son is a hockey NUT, and I get crazy when he gets high-sticked. Once he got a bloody nose, and he was 5! I flipped out on the Dad that was sitting 3 people away and telling his son "Hit him good" -Seriously!? Argh! I am not a hovering helicopter parent, nor an umbrella parent either, but I start boiling when my kids are hurt or being disciplined by anyone else. If I'm there, don't discipline my kids, I can handle them!
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