...And With the 253rd Pick Overall, the DeWagner's Select...

Yesterday was Draft Day in the NFL...not exactly a holiday in our house, but a cool weekend if you like watching people go from oh-so regular to oh-so rich in the time it takes for someone to call out their name.  It's kind of hard not to get a little emotional watching a 21 year old kid get teary, his smile grow wide, and his family explode with joy.  That's cool as cool gets every time.

We didn't watch much of it.  It was background noise for us at best, but it got me to thinking about what we're getting in baby #2...a funny notion considering we won't have the first idea of what we're going to get with Zoey for at least a decade.  Three to thirteen will fly by fast, but that will also mean that by 2022 we'll also have a ten year old to befuddle us.  Do you really figure your kids out?  Is there really any telling what they'll be?  I don't think so.  I think that at best you might approximate who they'll be...you have some direct control over that.  It's advice that I give kids all the time.  What you become is waaay less important than who you become.  I think that you can get a taste of tht from your children.  Values, integrity, ambition, honesty, goodness, etc...those are all character defining traits that you may catch glimpses of early, and certainly whose seeds you can plant and water, but what you're child will become...nope.

We fall victim to stereotypes as much as the next, and there were some absolutely unfair generalizations that we made about our children's future that are funny to share.

I didn't want a boy that would turn into a hockey player...why?  Because hockey players are 79% a#%holes.  It's true.  I was one.  Not all hockey players are a#%holes, no.  Girls are much less often a#%hole hockey players, and according to my math approx. 21% of all hockey players are decent, unspoiled, generous people, but after spending a giant hunk of my life around hockey players, trust me...the odds are stacked against you.

I'm glad that we're oh-so lower middle class of a family.  Rich kids get a skewed view of the world.  I'm glad our family is more closely connected to working class roots.  It matters.  Having a Dad, or Mom, that donated half of their life to Ford or Chrysler, or GM is something to be proud of, and it helps you find an honest perspective of the planet.  I know nice rich kids, but I know more awful ones.

There are more...there are oh-so many more, but I feel embarrassed to have said as much already.  Of course, I know this is all just nonsense, just rambling on a quiet Sunday, but there is some element of truth to it, a whisper at the very least, a roar at the most...You don't know what your child will become, and you can't control it, not entirely, but you can pay attention, and plant seeds, and inspire this development or that, support it, nurture it.  You can  stand up for things and tolerate this or that, but don't try to be there on Draft Day some twenty years too soon.  It doesn't work that way.