Growing Pain Tears

Yesterday was Peyton's (9y/o) second day of football. He has played soccer up to this point but decided to give football a try. He made this decision on his own despite the fact that he only has one other friend that plays football and all of his other friends play soccer. Anyway, his first practice was a disaster for him. He had missed the first two practices due to his late decision so all of the other boys had two days of training and knowledge behind them. Boy did he feel like a fish out of water. Half way through the practice he came over to me with big alligator tears running down his cheeks and onto his jersey. "My stomach hurts" is Peytonese for "I'm out of my comfort zone and am not happy." I told him that he could take a knee and watch the others until his stomach felt better. Well it never did. After practice he got into the Jeep and I asked him if he was okay. Well, the floodgate opened up. He started crying heavily. We hugged for a while and He told me that he didn't want to play football. I asked him why and through his sobs I understood him to say that he doesn't know anything about football and he "feels like an idiot." Haven't we all been there? A new place, a new job, a new school? Not knowing anything about anything. I've been there. It is through these times of stepping out of our comfort zones that we do some of our biggest changing. I told him that he shouldn't make a judgment based on his first night of practice. After all, most of the practice was conditioning and not FOOTBALL. I called his coach and we got the lowdown on football. Being a prior soccer player, I knew very little about football. The coach explained positions, stances, gaps, yadaa yadaa,yadaa. I then got off the phone and gave Peyton a lesson in footballology. It took us 10 minutes before he was telling me "if they call I formation 44 power, then this player does yadaa, yadaa, yadaa." WOW, you've got it buddy. You could see in his eyes the confidence build. Yeah!
Second night of practice... We get there, Peyton is excited. Good things. Half way through the practice he comes over to me,tears running down his face onto his jersey "My stomach hurts." OH NO!! What happened to that little boy that was calling plays on my bed last night. Where is the confidence. Oh, yeah.... We are out of our comfort zone again. I put my arm around him and we walked and talked as the other players did their thing. We talked about commitment, we talked about working through the emotional pain, we talked about growing. After a while his coach came over to check on him and encouraged him to come back over even if it was just to listen to the information. He reluctantly agreed and buckled his helmet. I went to a spot that I knew he would be able to see me. The coach explained blocking to the kids. I could tell that although he was listening his mind was elsewhere. Now the moment of truth. The coach is going to let the kids block each other. Peyton is up. He gets in his three point stance (don't worry I didn't know what it was either). The coach yell "DOWN, SET, .....HUT!" Peyton steps up and into his player and knocks the other player on his back. He turns and looks to me and through his face mask I see THE SMILE. The smile that says "Yeah, I can do this!!"