A Little Football with the Leatherkids

Like his Mommy, Cal can actually throw a pretty decent spiral with a football.  Sure, it's one of those miniature footballs; but his hand is a third the size of mine, maybe even smaller.  I'm not even sure when he developed this skill, really -- he's played some catch with his dad, I know... perhaps more than I've actually witnessed because it just seems to me that practicing throwing a football requires two people.  I know he'll throw this mini football straight up in the air with a tight spiral and catch it when it comes back down; but his throwing it forward seems to have been limited to what he can do in our living room against the wall or the couch by himself (not much for fear of breaking something, not that there's much to break) or with Dan (maybe more than I think).

Over the past week or two, he has asked me excitedly to play some catch with him in the living room.  I haven't always obliged, but when I have, Ella has usually joined us.  The bit is usually the same -- I throw to Cal, Cal throws to me, I toss to Ella, Ella throws to me... and then we start all over again.

I got home from work just before 7pm tonight.  The Leatherkids were already fed and showered and were looking for some Mommy time... or perhaps some football time with whatever warm-blooded creature might be up for it.  This warm-blooded creature bit.

We assumed our usual positions in the living room.  Cal positioned himself by the door, Ella by the pseudo (folding) dining room table and I by the kitchen.  And we started throwing and catching.

I have to say, Cal's spiral wasn't as tight tonight as it usually is.  I'm not sure why.  He seemed to be more interested in doing trick tosses than throwing a good ball.  Our right-handed Ella actually stepped and threw with her left foot (progress!) most of the time. And me?  I continued to work on my spiral with that miniature, light-as-a-feather, small-as-a-softball football, applying mechanics I learned from watching Ella toss it to me (no kidding -- it's different than throwing an adult-sized football) and just firing it hard to Cal and his bricks for hands (we're working on it).

We were probably five minutes into our tosses to each other when Cal changed things up and lined up next to me.  This was my sign to say, "set, hike!" at which time he'd run his pattern, which was basically a fly, if it could really be called that in our limited space.  He'd run, I'd try to lead him, and he'd drop it.  He'd hint (very nicely) that my passes weren't good; and I'd respond with, "if it touches your hands, you should catch it" (things I've been told many times by my male social club football teammates, not to suggest I dropped very many passes in my day).  Ella also lined up and ran her own version of the fly; and I gently tossed the ball to her when she turned around to catch it.

They took turns at running their patterns for five, maybe ten minutes, sometimes catching, sometimes dropping, usually smiling.  Once, Cal played defense on Ella, which was met with a tearful reception; so that ended abruptly.  She's soft -- another thing to work on once we nail the stepping-with-the-left-foot thing.

When they got tired of their patterns, we assumed our positions for playing catch.  Ella declared that we should count our consecutive catches.  She tossed one to me to start... "1"... then I threw it to Cal, who dropped it, and we started all over, this time all of us focused and committed to not dropping the ball.  Cal to me, me to Ella, Ella to me, me to Cal.  We set our own record at 24 in a row before Cal dropped one, a bullet and not-so-good-spiral thrown by moi.

And at 24 catches in a row, we called it a night... a fun night... a fun, football night with the Leatherkids.  I'll take that over any Pokemon-card talk any day!