There Are Too Many Kids Sports

Andrea Marie: All of that sounds very expensive. There’s too many sports. It’s too many.

Amanda Marks: I have friends whose kids were really into soccer and the adults were really into soccer and they did all the travel. So soccer teams, like they’re sending their kids to like Scotland over the summer. And that was like if I had, if we had to travel, that is not happening.

Andrea Marie: We are Moms Unhinged, a nationally touring standup comedy show. Join us in our podcast as we explore everything from motherhood, midlife, crisis, marriage, divorce, online dating, menopause, and other things that irritate us.

Hello everyone and welcome to Moms Unhinged, the podcast. I’m your host, Andrea Marie, and I’m joined today by the amazing, fabulous, wonderful Stacy Peterson and Amanda Marks welcome guys. Thank you.

Amanda Marks: Woo. Go team, go team.

Andrea Marie: Yes, go team. We are talking about kids sports today, but before I get started, I just want to introduce both these ladies, even though you guys have maybe already heard them on the podcast before, but Amanda Marks is one of our Atlanta based comedians.

She performs all over, she has a podcast herself as well. And Stacy Pederson is one of our Denver based comedians. She also performs all over with Moms Unhinged and has almost died a bunch. So you can hear that story.

Amanda Marks: Playing right?

Stacy Pederson: Hopefully, not today.

Amanda Marks: Right?

Andrea Marie: During kids sports games, yeah.

Stacy Pederson: My wallet died, that’s what.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Amanda Marks: Uh oh. I smell travel team.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

The Sports Their Kids Actually Played

Andrea Marie: Yeah. So Stacy, why don’t you just start and tell us what sports were your kids in?

Stacy Pederson: So my son was, we tried soccer, baseball, but he ended up doing wrestling. But he, majority of his career has been track and football.

Andrea Marie: Okay.

Stacy Pederson: So, and then my daughter is actually a great athlete. She did figure skating, gymnastics, and running and hate sports.

Andrea Marie: Wow.

Stacy Pederson: So I had two opposites of like, okay, we’re not, this is not her thing.

She’s good at it, but it’s not her thing.

Andrea Marie: Right. But all of it sounds expensive. Yes.

Stacy Pederson: So expensive. Oh, and swimming, right? Everybody had swimming.

Amanda Marks: Oh God, swimming.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Amanda Marks: Yeah. Were they on the swim team?

Stacy Pederson: Nope.

Amanda Marks: Yeah. That’s a huge commitment.

Andrea Marie: Just the swimming? Yeah, just the swimming. So, and Amanda, what kid, what sports were your kids in?

Amanda Marks: So I have three kids and my daughter who is the middle, but also the oldest of a set of twins, she’s I think our most athletic one. Both personality and abilities wise. And I signed up all my kids for rec, basketball and soccer when they were really little, but as a high schooler.

She’s now, she does lacrosse. She’s been doing it since sixth grade and she’s on the varsity team now. Which may fits with her personality. She’s a little scary and tough, but tiny and mighty. My oldest, Murray, in high school he started trying basically every sport that would give you a head injury.

Andrea Marie: How wonderful parent.

Amanda Marks: Right. I was like, maybe we should have waited for the braces. But he did football, boxing, rugby, wrestling. And now he’s in college and he’s on the rugby team.

And then my youngest son, who’s youngest by one minute, ’cause he is the baby of the twin, he tried football and did that for one, you’re with school and then now he does jiu jitsu and both my boys are really into working out at the gym.

And I know all the science behind it. And my oldest also was really into power lifting at one point. So they’re very strong. And I’m like the most unathletic person. I make fun of myself on stage about it. But they, it’s so interesting ’cause when they were, the boys were younger, they did sports but they were not that into it.

And as they got older, they got into sports. And now Oscar, my youngest can, like, he knows like about every single football team, how to play everything basketball. He knows like all the vocabulary I am, I’m still call them sports costumes, you know, I’m like.

Rec League vs. Travel Team Decisions

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. So that is wild. That all sounds, all of that sounds very expensive. There’s too many sports. It’s too many.

Amanda Marks: Well, we never did. I had rules, right? And if, like, I have friends who their kids were really into soccer and the adults were really into soccer and they did all the travel. So soccer teams, like they’re sending their kids to like Scotland over the summer. And that was like if I had, if we had to travel, that is not happening. And even my daughter, like she wanted to do some travel lacrosse team and I was like, oh man, that is. That sounds far away and really expensive. I’m like, we’re doing rec. We’re doing the rec sports. It’s not like she wanted to play in college. So I’m like, we don’t need to do that for our future.

Andrea Marie: Mean. Yeah, let’s crush that dream right now.

Amanda Marks: Now I mean, let’s go ahead and be realistic.

Stacy Pederson: come on.

We did travel, we did travel with football and track for several years before high school.

Andrea Marie: And where would you travel to? Like what?

Stacy Pederson: So their football team ended up being seventh in the nation. So we traveled, we ended up. We, like it was me. But I was there, and I paid for it. We ended up at, he competed at Disney World on the eSPN field. So, but yeah. All over.

Andrea Marie: Wow, that is crazy. Yeah. Let’s just start like racking up. So I’m leading this conversation, but I, my kids did the cheapest sport you could do, which is ultimate Frisbee. know, there’s no, you, there was like a jersey. I mean, there was, and then that’s it. There was some cleats.

I think and it was super cheap. So I do, but I was there all weekend. So let’s just start talking about all the expenses that are involved with all of this. So what is it all? Let’s just list ’em off. Rattle ‘ em .

All the Hidden Expenses

Stacy Pederson: You know, you’ve got uniforms and cleats. And the dues, yeah. The payments. Oh.

Amanda Marks: The gift for the coach.

Stacy Pederson:  and then, you know, like when you have the travel, you have all the travel expenses, and the food and all the snacks and all, you know, all the parties. ‘Cause then they have, their friends have birthday parties and everybody got, so you get invited to more things.

And here’s the thing that I didn’t know is that I would be expensive because I didn’t know there was this whole culture, mom culture thing with sports.

It’s like Dance Moms.

It is.

Amanda Marks: Yeah.

Stacy Pederson: No, they’re all like fit and they wear athletic wear and they’re all into football teams, but they look amazing. And I just like, I didn’t know, I showed up in like t-shirt and shorts and I was like, oh, this, I don’t look like any of these people. So I just trying to keep up.

Amanda Marks: Oh man, are we allowed to curse on this podcast?

Andrea Marie: Yeah, sure.

Injuries, Urgent Care, and Unexpected Costs

Amanda Marks: Because I was like, because I was like, fuck that shit, man. I was I didn’t do any of that. My kids go to public school and we didn’t do the travel. Our most expensive sport was wrestling because, of an injury.

They’re like, well, he can’t. And Murray, who, when he was a senior, he was on varsity wrestling and he was the heavyweight and there was just one other guy that could compete in this weight class. And Murray wasn’t planning on doing this last. He hated it. And he wasn’t planning on doing this last tournament, but something happened where the other guy couldn’t go.

So they’re like, we’re gonna, we need you to participate. And then like the night before he was supposed to participate, he gets hurt in practice and they’re like, well, we really need him to come tomorrow, but you have to get him cleared to come. We think he broke his nose.

So.

Andrea Marie: Oh God.

Amanda Marks: I took him to urgent care and they went through the rigmarole and then they’re like, we don’t know because we’re urgent care.

Does he have a sore throat? Then we can’t handle that. And we went to, and we took him to like the children’s hospital here, which is ama, like CHOA is what we call it. And it’s amazing and amazingly expensive, right?

And there, and so it was that. I made him stick to it ’cause I wanted him to apply to this very specific scholarship for college.

Like, and you had to be an athlete and then like the amount we paid. For the, in the eighth for the ER, bill was way more than what the scholarship was, and I was so like annoyed and he didn’t even break his nose. It wasn’t even broken. But, we got to look at his, we got to.

Andrea Marie: Later by you? No.

Amanda Marks: Right. And I was like, God, and, but I was so happy to see his brain, you know? ‘Cause you’re always, because his brain looked great. His brain was great.

Andrea Marie: God.

Amanda Marks: All those, you know, he did boxing and all those other things and I was like, thank God his brain looks good.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. That’s the other thing is injuries. You had a possible broken nose, but it didn’t get broken. Any other injuries that you guys had to deal with?

Amanda Marks: No. We were lucky that was it.

Stacy Pederson: yeah. Luke had multiple concussions from football, a pretty bad knee injury, and he does track, in college. So he’s a senior in college, so he does track. And so that knee injury ended up, his quad gets pulled a lot from that knee injury and he’s a long jumper.

We’ve had our fair share of urgent care. Yeah. But most of the time it was concussion related. Oh. And one time he got tackled he he got, he just hit the, they hit each other so hard. He went flat and went out cold for a minute.

Andrea Marie: Oh, gosh.

Amanda Marks: Scary.

Stacy Pederson: And I was scared to death. Like I just, and then he. Lied to the coach. He was like, I wasn’t out. And he totally was. He should have been out of the game.

And he’s like, no, I’m good. And then he went back and played more and I was like, dude, he was covered head to toe in bruises and stuff all the time.

Andrea Marie: My gosh. Yeah. But wow, boys, what is that? With all the, yeah, the hitting and the, yeah.

Amanda Marks: I have a question though about your kid, right? The kid that played football, is he also a hugger? Does he like to hug?

Stacy Pederson: No.

Amanda Marks: I see. I like, there goes my theory ’cause I, my theory was that kids who like contact sports, they also like they’re okay with proximity. Right.

And i’m like, I think I was like, maybe they’re all hug. Like Murray, he’s a big hugger, right? He loves to hug and he’s affectionate and I’m like, that’s why I thought he was like, okay with all this like close because you’re, they are like really close to each other. Grabbing Yeah.

Stacy Pederson: Well, he’s fast. His thing is speed, which is why he long jumps. So he was always running.

Amanda Marks: Yeah. He was the runner, yeah.

Stacy Pederson: Yeah.

Amanda Marks: Give him the ball. Yeah.

Andrea Marie: That’s so funny.

Looking Back at Who Their Kids Were Early On

Stacy Pederson: Yeah, but it’s interesting, you know, when you look back on your kids and you see who they were as babies and little, and then you could see, now you’re like, oh my gosh, that totally makes sense. When he was six, he learned how to crawl at six months old, and he only crawled for maybe three weeks. It was like he was done, he was over it, and so he was running by seven months old and I having a seven month old boy running everywhere.

Amanda Marks: Yeah.

Stacy Pederson: and he,

Andrea Marie: That’s awful.

Amanda Marks: Stick them back in that baby Bjorn.

Right? Yeah.

Andrea Marie: Awful.

Stacy Pederson: Then he was.

Andrea Marie: I was promised another five months.

Stacy Pederson: Then he was doing flips off the couch by age. no. By one and a half to two, he’d figured out how to do hand springs off the couch or would run across the top of the couch and jump, which he’s a long jumper. And I put him one semester in gymnastics ’cause I was like, this kid is gonna kill himself doing hand springs. He might as well learn how to do it the right way. Oh, he hated it.

Amanda Marks: It was too structured probably.

Stacy Pederson: He just would stand there and refuse to do it until the coach told me not to bring him back. He’s like, he’s not, he’s not.

Andrea Marie: No thank you.

Amanda Marks: I

had soccer.

Stacy Pederson: Yeah, he was like, I’m not, he just wasn’t interested. Oh, wow. And would not do what the coach said.

Signing Kids Up Too Early (And Regretting It)

Amanda Marks: I had a kid who, Murray also, again, he was always running around wanting to touch everything. And he was the first kid and my husband kept on wanting to sign him up for all these things like way too early, like put him in soccer when he was two. ’cause he was big. He looked like he was a 4-year-old.

So they let him in. But he wanted to sign him up for yoga when he was four. And I was like. There’s no way he’s gonna sit in yoga and he’s like, oh, it’s little kid yoga.

They know how to handle these kids. I’m like, okay, you’re in charge and you get to take ’em. So he takes ’em to yoga. He calls me 10 minutes after drop off and he’s like, everything’s going great.

He was sitting in the circle, I’m at the coffee shop next door and I think this is gonna go great. And I’m like. Oh, okay. I was surprised. And then two minutes later I get a call from him. He goes, okay, Murray and I are in the car. We’re heading home. I was like, what happened? You’re just getting coffee?

He goes, yep. She called me and said he wouldn’t stop running around and she couldn’t, you know, get him to sit down. So I picked him up and we’re on the way.

Andrea Marie: That’s so funny. It was a nice 10 minutes. 10 minutes of yoga. It’s all we need, I know. Yeah, now let’s talk. That brings up a good point though about the young sports. Like how early did you guys have your, you were starting ’em at two, like there’s so bad for so long I in these sports, but like how early were your kids in sports?

Stacy Pederson: So I had, the reason my kids, I put my kids in sports early was I had this thing in my head that if they could figure out. What they were good at and what they loved. By the time they hit middle school, they would do better in life. Like they would make better choices for themselves ’cause they would know who they are.

And so we just did a lot of experimenting and my daughter has ended up being a beautiful artist. That’s why she’s. Didn’t love the sports, but it was like this series of X-ing out. Oh, that’s not their thing. That’s not their thing. That’s not their thing. Or it is. And that philosophy actually worked like it, ’cause they made friends that way and they really did know what they liked and didn’t like and had good friends because of it.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Amanda Marks: Yeah, I grew up where my dad put all of us in little league and, and basketball. And it wasn’t because I was good at sports, it was because he wanted us to learn to be a part of a team. And I learned that I was afraid of balls.

But still, it was just a part of, like, for me, it was just a part of childhood. Like, you try sports, you try music. We all played piano, you did the everything from the arts to the athletics. And I just, I did the same thing with my kids. And it was giving them a taste of different thing, being active and meeting people. It was more of like a social thing. And if they happen to become passionate about it, then. Great. You know, Ruby, we also signed up Ruby and Oscar for, they took hip hop, they took ballet and hip hop.

Oh my God. They looked like, when they were like four, they were in a recital together. And it was so, people thought they looked like little Russian ice dancers in their costumes. They were, it was so, it was so cute. But she ended up like loving hip hop until she didn’t.

Andrea Marie: Uh huh.

Amanda Marks: And I wasn’t, I’m not a mom that like makes my kid, you know, do something forever until it’s painful. So we just tried. We tried the next thing, but we did. We did sign up Murray way too early for soccer and I think it was ’cause my husband was like really into soccer when he was little and as an adult and he was just excited.

It was the first, so he was like, we were just so excited, but he was running around pretending to be a duck the whole entire time, so it was not.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. My favorite was Little League where they are out in the outfield doing who knows what, you know, rolling around looking at the bugs, and you’re like, the ball’s coming to you. You know?

Amanda Marks: Get a concussion. Yeah.

When Kids’ Sports Take Over Your Time

Andrea Marie: I know. Yeah, that’s hilarious. So with all these sports, you guys must have had like so much time, isn’t it?

So, I mean, that’s the thing about nowadays is that, you know, my mom never went to our sports, but we now as parents, we go to all the sports things. I mean, that must have been a lot of time outta your, out of your weekends and weekdays.

Amanda Marks: With Stacy, she’s traveling. That’s huge commitment.

Stacy Pederson: It was a lot of time, but, I loved that time with him, so it wasn’t like a, I didn’t love the dads. Let’s just put it like the, I didn’t love the beer belly yelling in the back at their kids’ field. I’m like, shut up. Like, you’re not, they can’t even hear you and you’re destroying your child’s self-esteem.

Like, what is wrong with you? I didn’t enjoy that, but I did enjoy just the whole journey of it with him.

And it’s a long story, but when my son was very little, my first husband got very sick and I worked so much that I missed those first several years with him. And I kept always told myself, I’ll make up for it when he’s in high school.

And that’s kind of how being able to travel with him and spend that time and just, I just enjoyed watching him.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, for sure. It is fun to watch them do their thing and especially as they get better and better. It’s just, it’s good time. I, it’s, the thing that’s weird is I just remember when I was doing sports, when I was young, it was like, we’d have like one game a week, you know?

It was like one game a week, and now it seems to be like a whole weekend thing, you know?

Stacy Pederson: Yeah. And Sundays like I remember when Sundays weren’t a sports day and it’s like seven days a week. There’s something yeah, yeah.

It’s a weird culture though too, I think as parents of trying to navigate. That world. It’s just, it is a subculture of parents that, you know, with whatever their, like if it’s dance or if it’s gymnastics or if it’s football, it’s like they all have their own little unique quirks. I don’t know how to explain.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Pressures, maybe.

Stacy Pederson: Yeah, yeah.

The Wild Side of Sports Parents

Amanda Marks: Yeah, I mean I was mainly, I’m mainly a sports mom for like rec sports and then middle school and high school sports. And when as they get older, for public high school sports, it actually gets easier because there’s transportation. Like the biggest thing is like having to drive them back and forth.

But so like, I don’t have to, like with lacrosse, Ruby gets, she hops on a bus and if it’s far, far away, like we just, we don’t go. Like, we go to the stuff that’s at our local high school and she doesn’t even want us to be there all the time. Like sometimes they want us there. They definitely have opinions about, us yelling their names and it’s, and what my husband can do and what I’m allowed to do and,

what the siblings are allowed to do.

And

some, and we’ve just, at this point since Ruby’s the last one to, well, Oscar did rec basketball this year, but Ruby is like, I don’t want you yelling. And so that I’m like, I am going to yell.

Andrea Marie: I can’t help it.

And I can’t, right. And it’s, and I don’t even think she can really hear us anyways out there. But the funniest, the weirdest part of sports is. You know, when teams are playing against each other and there’s defense and everyone’s yelling, go D, hold that D, big D. And I’m like giggling.

‘Cause all I can think of is that they’re really saying, Dick, when they’re saying defense. And I told one of my friends that who kept on yelling it really loud, and then he stopped yelling for the rest of the game. He’s like, no really, people think I’m saying that. It’s like, yeah, they do. They do think you’re saying let’s get some of that big D energy out there.

Amanda Marks: Right. Oh yeah, exactly. I’m like, I can’t stop. I can’t stop that.

Stacy Pederson: Hold onto the balls.

Andrea Marie: Hold onto The balls. D. I know.

Amanda Marks: like other people have to be thinking the same thing. I just say it out loud.

Andrea Marie: I do feel like we’re at a little disadvantages being comedians. We think things that other people maybe don’t think.

Amanda Marks: Oh God.

 this subculture also of these moms and what’s fun to see is with the mom’s first time when their kids in a sport and getting used to what’s happening. And the first time I was at, when Murray tried wrestling twice throughout, like once in, eighth grade and then again junior and senior year of high school.

But so in eighth grade when he’s doing wrestling, we are at some sort of tournament and there’s like four different. Matches or bouts or whatever they’re called going on. And I hear this mom yell as loud as she can get off my baby, and I was just like, oh my God, my kids cannot complain about me cheering for them because it life

Okay.

could be so much worse. I mean, I was then we were like all waiting for the mom to like jump on the mat and rip like an 11-year-old off her son.

Andrea Marie: That’s the true helicopter mom. She’s in there with him.

Amanda Marks: But also you can imagine she probably couldn’t even control herself. Right? Like she saw some kid manhandling her child and she was like, she just went full mama bear. And it just came out like, I think she probably couldn’t control herself. ’cause what mom, if she could’ve controlled herself, I don’t think she would’ve said that, right?

I think she just couldn’t, it’s like breathing. She couldn’t, she couldn’t even help it.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s hilarious.

Amanda Marks: Off my baby.

Andrea Marie: That’s so funny.

It can be stressful watching your kids play sports. I always, when my kids were in soccer. I would always just have to walk away when they were goalie. I was like, I gotta, I can’t watch this. You know, like the pressure. So, you know, it can definitely be a little wild having to be the spectator and that’s so funny.

Amanda Marks: I. My Favorite thing though, is running, as the comedian mom is when I get to help with concessions.

Andrea Marie: Oh yeah.

Amanda Marks: And I have like a whole marketing and branding background too. So one time, they had bought like a ton of all this Chick-fil-A product and people weren’t. Eating it and they’re like, Amanda, you gotta sell that Chick-fil-A.

And I was like, I got this. And I’ve like, I have no idea what’s happening in the game. I’m useless. Right. But I know how to hawk some Chick-fil-A, so I’m your girl.

Andrea Marie: you’re, You’re out there in the stands, the little, you know, the strap on thing Chick-fil-A.

Amanda Marks: I’m just saying, and it prepared me to help run the merch table at Moms Unhinged, right? I’m like, there’s really no, I like, you want, whether you want like a a cup that feels like a boob or you want a Chick-fil-A sandwich, like my sales tactic are pretty much the same.

Stacy Pederson: Oh.

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s hilarious. So any other weird moments from sports times that you guys can think of or had or whatever? I don’t know if you had any.

Stacy Pederson: I can slice some serious oranges. I’m just gonna say it.

Andrea Marie: Oh yeah.

Amanda Marks: No kid’s have on Stacy’s watch.

Stacy Pederson: Cheese oranges. You know, you sling Chick-fil-A. I got on the oranges.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. We wWeld have this tournament at in ultimate Frisbee, and it would be on Mother’s Day every year.

Amanda Marks: That’s so mean.

Andrea Marie: It was horrible. It was so mean. But the dads did step up. I will say the dads stepped up. I, although I think I was kind of nudged by the moms, but they brought in like a little spread of mimosas and little baked goods and things like that.

I

Amanda Marks: Only in ultimate.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Amanda Marks: Baked goods, right?

Andrea Marie: Baked Goods. Yeah, I do think, I do think it was kind of spearheaded by the moms, but the dads ended up getting credit for it, I’m sure for some reason.

Stacy Pederson: What men taking credit for women what?

Amanda Marks: One of my, favorite moments is after rec basketball. They have a game where you can sign up for it and it’s parents versus coaches.

Andrea Marie: Oh gosh.

Amanda Marks: And our coach was a six, seven, and a former professional basketball player, like he played in college and then he played in for a European team afterwards and like the nicest guy.

And of course, like there’s no women who sign up, it’s all like the dads. And then most of the coaches are guys. And I’m like, I am signing up. Right? I gotta represent as a mom. But then also I was very worried about, what am I gonna wear? I wanna look cute. So I had on like this, like just like a turquoise tank top. These like blue, like 1980s looking sports shorts with like the white piping around them, like the shorty shorts.

And then like those white socks, like the old school basketball socks with the stripes and then some converse high tops. And so my strategy was like, being really aggressive because I knew they didn’t wanna hurt me and ’cause I was by far and I’m not sure, like I’m like five, six, right?

But compared to all the guys, I’m like tiny out there and I’m like running around in pigtails and I’m really aggressive ’cause this is my strategy. So the guy, the coach, Coach Beard’s running down full court with the basketball, like really fast. And I took a chance and I just jumped in front of him and he, I was trying to distract.

Andrea Marie: Oh my God.

Amanda Marks: He came to like a complete full stop and was like, whatcha doing? And he literally. Picked me up and moved me way and just kept like going. But I was like, I got Coach Beard, you know? So I was like, I made them, let me block him because even though he was 6’7″, I was like, I’m the best one. I’m your best. I’m your best hope. I’m your best hope. There’s no one tall enough to block him on our team, so we gotta use some spirit and I am your spirit.

Andrea Marie: That’s so funny. Oh my gosh. Hello. Do you guys have a, that’s awesome. Do you have a favorite moment from watching your kids play sports? And favorite moments come to mind?

The Moments That Make It Worth It

Stacy Pederson: I do, I never cared, like with Luke, if they won or not. I was always like, your integrity is what matters. And I feel like that’s helped. Sports helped him so much with that, of learning work ethic and all of that. And I had a moment, like my most proud moment of him was a play went wrong and he got really mad. And we talked a lot about, you know, your integrity on like, don’t throw fits on the field, right?

And he took his mouth guard and he threw it down and was like yelling. And I had, and I’m in the stands going, wait, what? Like, you know, that’s the one thing. And I watched him pick up his take, take a moment. He picked up his mouth guard, then he went over to every referee and apologized.

He didn’t get a flag or anything, but he went and apologized to all the referees and then the coach, and I was like, okay, my son’s gonna be like.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Stacy Pederson: That’s a good kid. Yeah.

Amanda Marks: A lot of self-awareness to being able to do that, you know?

Andrea Marie: Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah.

Amanda Marks: I love that story.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. I had some fun moments just being able to watch my kid make plays. Both of them at one time or another, just made a really good play and you’re just so excited for them that they get that like that feeling, that feeling of like how it feels to just really go for something and win and get it.

And it wasn’t even that the game, you know, it wasn’t like a game winning thing or anything, but it was a, just such a good play and, you know, it’s just fun to be there.

Amanda Marks: Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting because, you know, there’s that stereotype that trope that sports gives kids confidence boost.

And I’ve really seen that with our youngest and everything he tried and whenever he was able to figure something out and they also, I let them try skateboarding.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Amanda Marks: He really, I remember him saying, I feel more confident in me being like, oh, I guess that, I guess that does work. But, what I also like, I don’t know if I have favorite memories. There’s lots of moments from all, I think all my kids that are real special. But, as a mom who’s just natural paranoid about my kid’s safety. I was really worried when Murray started doing football ’cause he was a lineman.

And the first game I was so nervous and then realized once he started playing how strong he was, because he was just kind of like, boop, like just like kind pushing people. He’s like, then I just, sorry.

And I don’t know any of the sports terms, so I just started yelling, push ’em. Murray, you push, you push them, push him outta the way.

Andrea Marie: Good pushing.

Amanda Marks: did

1. I would say I have to, I do, well, this is a, was a significant moment when. My kid tried out for the youngest one tried, Oscar, tried out for the football team in like sixth grade and didn’t make it, but it was so important for, he loved being a part of the practice and being, just being a part of the team. And he went to the coaches and said, can I just be a manager?

Like, he just wanted to be on the field and wanted to come to practice to be a part everything. And they created a special like assistant coach role for him, like, and so he would show up and then eventually, like something happened to one of the players and they’re like, we’re putting you in Oscar.

Andrea Marie: Putting in the manager. Let’s go.

Amanda Marks: So it was, you know, he just wanted to, it was just, a lot of times, it’s not necessarily about being on the field, but just being like the comradery of being part of a team.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, for sure. That’s so great. That’s so great. Well you guys, this has been so much fun. I love all the stories. Thank you so much for taking some time out to share and we’ll have your links in the show notes so people can know where to follow you, all that stuff. So thank you so much.

Amanda Marks: Thanks for having me.

Andrea Marie: Thanks for listening and make sure you subscribe, share, and follow us on the socials to get more comedy clips.