Football Season Is Finally Here!

Not that I really care about football at all, but it's a good season for me nonetheless.  Matt is a fanatical Philadelphia Eagles fan.  When I say fanatical, I mean that he spends vast amounts of time reading information about the team online (does this help the team?), he cannot watch games with other people (in case he has a little baby tantrum if the Eagles are not playing well), and he will do almost anything in order to be allowed the sizable chunk of time it takes to watch an entire football game.

Some women would let an opportunity like this pass them by.  They might think, my husband works so hard, surely he deserves to watch a few hours of football on the weekend without having to pay for it.  Not me.  While I agree that Matt works hard and is a good father, provider, husband, etc, I do not think it is reasonable to spend what actually amounts to one-fourth of the weekend watching car and erectile dysfunction commercials interspersed with a few moments of football.  I'm not even anti-football.  I think it's fine, and I'll watch a few minutes here and there.  I get the team loyalty and the interest in the backstories of the players and all that.  But I'm not one to let a golden opportunity pass me by.  Several years ago, when Finn was a baby and Matt and I realized that any free time either one of us wanted would have to be negotiated and paid for, I made a deal with Matt that has eternally paid great dividends.  The deal is that he can watch the game, or games, if games other than ones the Eagles are playing in are "important" to the Eagles (meaning that their standing in the division might possibly depend on the outcome of said other game), so long as he is dealing with the child(ren) during the hours of play.  That means I have at least half of the day, and often the whole day, to do as I please.  Sadly, "as I please" today meant dealing with the house, but I was actually very pleased to be able to do it in peace.

Over the years, Matt has become a master at entertaining the children without actually having to engage his brain, which is, of course, otherwise occupied.  We think the person who invented Candyland (was Milton Bradley a person?) was either an idiot or a genius, because if you play a whole game and you do actually engage your brain, you might throw yourself out a window before you round into Peppermint Paradise.  For a while, puzzles were Matt's tool of choice, and I would come home from a long walk with a friend to find 17 puzzles laid out on the floor, the children clamoring for me to admire each one while Matt sprawled happily on the couch.  Now the boys create giant lego things with a little guidance from the father figure, or they bring every stuffed animal they own into the living room and make a practically life-sized zoo for them with blocks and pillows.  It's literally the only time I see Matt truly working on his multi-tasking skills, as he keeps up a stream of encouraging murmurs to direct the children in their activity while he keeps track of the main event.  Ruby has thrown a bit of a wrench into the situation, but Matt is handling it well.  It turns out he can read books without actually looking at them, and it's not like Ruby cares, she's just happy to be part of the football party.  So we're all happy on football Sundays, win or lose, because we all have a few hours to do exactly what we want.

Now if only the Eagles could make it to the post-season this year ...