When I comment on posts about feeding my husband’s wide receivers at the house, I think some of us envision a 21st-century version of Mrs. Cleaver standing at the edge of her kitchen, with a fresh coif, pearls around her neck without a shine or shadow on her face, holding a platter of meat delicately adorned with parsley, the table decorated with school colors and a cute little banner urging our boys to pummel the next team.
Maybe in my head, that’s how it goes, but in reality, I look a little more like Goldie Hawn in the movie, Overboard.
On any late Sunday afternoon, I’m a sweaty mess, looking more like I just stepped out of hot yoga than the prim and proper, put together June Cleaver.
I’ve got eyeliner drifting down one cheek and hair-well everywhere. The dirty dishes used to prepare the meal lay haphazardly on top of one another (even though both my aunt and my mother taught me to clean as I go), and it’s likely I’m still dressed in my after-church crappy shorts and t-shirt. My plans for changing clothes and brushing my hair were clearly overly ambitious.
Last week I couldn’t find the nice salt and pepper shaker (after our last move) and just put the actual big, blue, round Morton salt container and the canister of McCormick’s black pepper on my table but I don’t think those boys cared.
They amble into the house, some grinning shyly, others taking charge gregariously. They find their seats at the table and soon feel comfortable enough to begin requesting their favorite dishes. It’s in that moment that I am okay with the fact that Southern Living is never going to show up at this coach’s wife’s house for a photoshoot.
My goal isn’t perfection on these Sunday nights with other mothers’ sons at my table. (Well, okay it is – but I am very practiced at settling.) It’s connection; it’s relationship; it’s each young man’s knowledge that he is important to us in and out of his pads.
If they come back the next week, well that’s a notch in my cutting board in the column marked W.
#golighttheworld
#fridaynightwives
#feedingthewideouts #coachwifelife #sundaynighttraditions #sweetboys #letsplaycatch #mamawitch
