One of the birdies is about to fly away...

Alex was offered a football scholarship at a two year college in the NE part of our state, where he will be their kicker, and decided to accept it. After his two yrs. at this school, he plans to transfer to a 4 yr. out-of-state school to finish his degree. Right now, he's planning on architectural engineering. I'm so proud of him and really happy for him... but I'm not happy, if that makes any sense. The school is 3-4 hrs. away, and I'm just not ready for this.

Yesterday, we went up to the high school for the signing ceremony (of his letter of intent). Since we live in such a small town, the whole school is dismissed from classes to come into the auditorium and watch when a kid has one of these ceremonies. Isn't that funny?

There was one other boy signing to play baseball for another college and Alex. So each boy took turns up on the stage with his parents, coaching reps from the colleges, the high school coach, and the principal. There were speeches, clapping, pictures, etc. and I looked like a great big ole' whale (if whales get acne) up on that stage. I was self-conscious each and every second I was up there and could feel the mean, snarky little teenage-girl eyes piercing through my fatness, just like they did X number of years ago. I felt like I was in 9th grade all over again. It didn't help that the other kid's mom is considered the "hot mom" by a lot of the boys at school. Great. Just what I need- to follow the long-legged, skinny, perfectly coiffed, hot mom, in her cute little jacket and jeans, onto the stage. I was wearing my prettiest size double huge tarp but oddly, I still felt a little inferior. It really didn't help when I started sweating and the coach asked if my contractions were five minutes apart yet. OK, that last part may have been a slight exaggeration, but you get my point. I felt fat and ugly up there. But you know... Some things are not about me. Go figure. Alex looked so handsome up there, and I just could not have been more proud.

One of the news stations was there and they showed it on the evening news. There was also a nice write-up about him today in a local paper, so that's really neat for him. It was funny because Alex had already signed the real letter of intent and sent it back to the college last week, so for the "official" signing, he was given a pen to sign a blank piece of paper as flashbulbs went off, the news guy filmed, and the crowd applauded. Seemed a little goofy, but whatever... I guess that's how these things are done.

After the thing was over, the coach from the college told us he'd love to see Alex be able to come in July instead of August to start all the conditioning/work-out stuff. Yippee! He's leaving home a whole month earlier than I thought! Oh, boy. I'm so excited. See the tears of joy? In a completely separate bit of news, totally unrelated to my inability to cope with letting go, I will be needing a large casserole dish of homemade mac and cheese, a tub of Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream (and bring the big one, please. This is no time to skimp), some M&M's, a cube of Diet Pepsi, and a bag of Pepperidge Farms Milk Chocolate Milano cookies. Mommy needs to medicate.

Here's a few pics of the signing. Mike took these and he is the king of the shaky cam, so one is a little fuzzy. This is the HS principal, the FB coach, Alex, the college recruiting/coaching guy, a wildebeast with flatiron issues who got lost and wandered in from outside looking for food, and half of Darrell. Yes, Alex bleached his hair. It was for a costume party last weekend and he kept it that way.

Here's one of Darrell with almost all of the kids, at Alex's game the other night. Livie and I had to stay home because she was sick. So here is Mike, Evan, Tucker, Darrell holding Kindra's son Braden, Kindra, Kyle, Brianna, Alex, and Nick.


And here's a couple of the little peanut before going to that game, while she was waiting for her daddy to get ready. I guess the stress of the day was more than she could take. She just flopped out on the ottoman and caught a quick refresher. Life is rough when you're six.