Information

[Heatherj81]

My itty bitty skinny guy comes home wanting to sign up for wrestling because his best friend is in wrestling.  His best friend looks like he's already on steroids and appears to be 13 instead of 7.  So I tell my itty bitty skinny guy (who is good at basketball and great at soccer) that we could try it.  But inside I'm screaming NO!!!!!!!  You're going to get your itty bitty skinny butt beat!!!To my surprise, about 2 weeks after practice starts the first tournament comes around.  We live in a really small farm town north of Cincinnati.  The tournament is for all the schools in the Cinci area...which includes the giant, non farming towns that have lots of money to spend on sports.  Their teams have actual coaches instead of high school kids that are volunteering their time like our podunk school.We walk into the school where the tournament is being held.  Our team has no uniforms, no head gear, no mouth guards.  The teams already there are doing drills.  Drills!  Our team doesn't do drills!  They have matching uniforms!  They have headgear...they even have wrestling shoes.  Oh, and did I mention they have coaches that aren't high school kids volunteering their time? And I bet the teams had more than 2 weeks worth of practice.   We apparently had "HICKS" tattoo'd on our foreheads.Well, long story short my son does surprisingly considering the differences in our team versus everyone else.  Meanwhile I'm in the stands trying to not yell at the other kids to not hurt my baby.    I can't stand to watch him wrestling, but at the same time I can't not not look either. He did well enough in the round robin that the final match he was in was for third place.  Which is outstanding considering the circumstances.  Shortly after the match started, it was pretty darn clear that my son was not going to win.  With about 30 seconds left, he was flipped over on his back at a weird angle and landed on his shoulder.  And he didn't get up.  I could see him crying, crumpled up on the floor and not getting up.  Darn punks with their fancy schools and fancy uniforms had hurt my baby.   He finally gets up, moves his shoulder around a little bit, and the high school coach told him to shake the punk's hand because there is only 30 seconds left, DS is hurt, and there is no way he was going to win.  DS told his coach that was going to finish the match.  And he did.  By getting knocked down one more time.  And we will be doing this every weekend until March.  I don't know if I'll survive.  I think DH had an even harder time with it all than I did.  

[FurBaby_Mom]

I shouldn't have read this.  I CANNOT imagine my baby (he's almost three) in a situation like this.  I dread those days.....Seriously.  Can't I just FREEZE him at this age?!?!

[Wendy-Gale]

Oh man all I can say is thank God for little girls...my nephew plays football and got knocked unconcious this weekend playing...2x....

[moodyonceamth]

omg I don't think I'd be able to stand it either.  Luckily, both my kids are slackers like me and they don't care for sports.  

[Heatherj81]

I shouldn't have read this.  I CANNOT imagine my baby (he's almost three) in a situation like this.  I dread those days.....Seriously.  Can't I just FREEZE him at this age?!?!
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I told my almost three year that he was going to join the chess team when he goes to school. 

[Heatherj81]

Oh man all I can say is thank God for little girls...my nephew plays football and got knocked unconcious this weekend playing...2x....

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Man, I hope he's ok.  I put my foot down with football.  Unless my son gains some weight (which is unlikely since he takes after his father), he will not be playing football.  At least wrestling has a lightweight division...football doesn't.

[Northern Brat]

I am like that with hockey!  I hate seeing him hit, but then again, he does have equipment on him!

[FurBaby_Mom]

Ugh.....The thing is, Elijah will probably be very athletic.  Chess sounds good to me, too.

[Kara]

I am sorry. It is so hard to watch them fail or possibly get hurt, makes us stronger, I guess...

[dnrscherer]

Well at least you had the restraint to stay in the stands...my eldest of trhree boys is only four and I cringe at the thought of what's coming...if mine got hurt I'm afraid I'll be "that" mom that has to be restrained by her husband...(he's one of four boys and "gets" the sports stuff)...Your DS sounds like a real brave and strong young man...

[bayouscrap]

I know the feeling. I cringed when my oldest played football. If he is going to stay in wrestling though you need to invest in some head gear and a mouth guard. You seriously do not want him to get cauliflower ear. It looks so nasty and if it's bad enough it looks like it could block some hearing. My DH is into that UFC stuff and he's gotten hurt twice and the second time he went to the Dr to get it opened and drained and it bothered him so much he went & bought headgear.

[baltoscrapper]

This is the kind of crap that scares me to death about having a boy! Fortunately, like Moodys kids, Mason isn't really into sports.

[scrappinchic]

As the mom of a skinny kid I feel your pain.  I can't imagine him wanting to wrestle but I remember my panic when he first told me he was going to start as catcher for his baseball team.Laura

[AnnOminous]

Try getting them interested in dog training.  Yea, people do take spills in agility competition, but I think it's still safer.

[Laura Fiore]

Yikes Heather...sounds scary! He's pretty young, and I've heard small and wiry is good in wrestling. He's a tough little guy to get up and finish even though he was probably scared to death!My ds played goalie in hockey...couldn't believe my dh (the coach!) put him there! When he first started, he had to borrow the equipment, so it was huge...looked like it would stand up without him, and the first few games he got beat down pretty badly by those pucks sailing by him. Took him very little time at all to get good...his little peewee team even took a few championships (small town stuff). It get's easier to watch, I promise!

[mamma2allboyz]

My two oldest play baseball, and both got knocked in the head with pitches this past summer.  My 9 year old shrugged it off my more emotional 7 year (with glasses mind you) stood and cried for a minute and then shook it off.  I stood there freaking out but the coaches ran right to them and the boys seemed to do better with them, than me.  I have learned to try to sit back and watch and let the coaches do what they do.  My 9 year old has asked to not play baseball next year he will be 10 in the summer, instead he wants to play football ugh!!!!   So I have told him ok, but you cant play both, and if you want to play it then go ahead.  I think he will do ok,  hes pretty competitive and I think its more up his alley than baseball.  I will probably have to watch him get hurt as well, but I just feel like I have to let them play a sport they want to play.  I remembered growing up my mom and dad wouldnt let me play sports, so I was always the team "stat" and went to all the games that way. 
hugs 

[-Shannon-]

Sounds like you're doing a fine job so far. I'm sure its hard to watch but you must be so proud that he's exploring things on his own. Sounds like he's a winner for not quitting even when the odds were against him.

[2Bizi]

Ay! I have a big kid who's 5 and looks 7 and I have one who is 3 wiry, tough but is about the size of a 2yo. We'll just have to see. Soccer ok, Basketball, Baseball ok. dh LOVES watching football and so my eldest already knows all the teams and quarterbacks and stuff... i hope he sticks to watching this one. Hadn't EVEN thought about wrestling... It's all so hard... even the non contact stuff is hard to watch... my eldest goes to karate and that's fine but once there was a sub teaching and it was incredibly different and hard and he kept yelling at Joseph it seemed when he was just trying his best. So you bite your lip and hope it gets easier. I read once that having kids is accepting permanently that a piece of your heart is forever walking outside your body... only too true now.

[diana]

My youngest son has played football for 4 years and he loves it. It was really hard on me the first year having to watch my baby ( that was before my dd) get nailed but as the year progressed I got as use to it is a mom can. He loves it and at the end of every year he gets depressed about it ending. He has never been hurt playing football but ended up in the emergency room when he played baseball, he got hit by an alumn bat in full swing.  My oldest son has played football  2 years and didn't really care for it he is more a basketball type. I have to say though in all honestly football has really helped my youngest son build his self-asteam. He has made friends that I feel comfortable with him being around. His team went undefeated this year and won their championship this is 2 in a row for them. There is just so much more than the pratices and games were his team is concerned we have awsome coaches who make is really fun for the kids. This weekend the team is going to be in the town Christmas parade.  

[Heatherj81]

If he is going to stay in wrestling though you need to invest in some head gear and a mouth guard.
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We are.  This is my oldest son and the first time at a wrestling tournament.  I had no idea that he needed those things and no one told me.  None of the kids on our team had them. 

We have a couple of senior citizen doggies that did go through agility.  When we do get another dog, we have plans to do agility and flyball with them.  We loved flyball!