Paintball Mama

Moms of boys end up doing the strangest of things. For example, before I had my four sons I hated football. I thought it was brutish and infantile and rather pointless to boot. Of course, now after Josiah (the oldest) has played for five years I have become a football fiend. During on game last summer, I actually caught myself yelling out to Eric (who had just been splayed out just short of a touchdown) if he wanted me to sew him a dress? I haven't painted my face yet or dyed my hair blue and gold (their team colors). I guess I'm saving those embarassing "mommy theatrics" for high school.

It's the same with another one of my sons' loves. Never in my wildest, or for that matter, scariest dreams would I have imagined going paintballing, but yet there I was looking all cammando in my thrift- store army jacket and face mask last weekend. Tucked under my arm was a rented Pirhana. I wieled it like a Tommy Gun. I have to say I felt like saying something tough like, "you feel lucky, punk?" But, Josiah's football buddies were there and I knew that he could only stand so much embarassment.

Everything was going so well. Isn't that how it is right before disaster strikes? Sure, I had taken a paintball shot or two. The one to my inner thigh wasn't too pleasant, but I figured that compared to labor a few pings of exploded paint was nothing. I had even managed to shoot someone. Never mind that he was the biggest and slowest of the targets. No offense, Lee. You played with gusto.

Our team (the ones with the yellow strips hanging from our masks) was about to take a fort from an elevated position. Our enemy (the non-yellow ones) lie in wait, 300 yards downhill. Joe and I decide to flank to the right. Others would invade up the middle and to the left. We have it in the bag, I think to myself. The horn sounds and were off, running full speed through the uncut woods. Brambles and thorns tug at my jacket and threaten to knock the Pirhana out of my hands. I haven't run like this since I was a kid. The unfamiliar sensation of adreneline coursing through my veins, drives me onward. Twigs whip across my mask. We've almost made it to some cover when bam! I'm facedown in a pile of dead leaves. A root growing out of the ground in the shape of an arc, snagged my unsuspecting foot. My knee pounds and my shin throbs. My shoe is missing. Joe is trying to put it on. I push it away, afraid my ankle might be sprained. About a hundred feet away, I spot my neice. Out of pity, she waits to shoot me until I call all that "I'm okay." There's no glory in shooting a woman while she's down. I hobble to the nearest shelter to nurse my wounds, all the while thinking what I won't do for those boys of mine.

Even though my knee still aches, I'm grateful. It, like anything, could have been far worse. I could have sprained or broken any number of essential bones. And, it allowed me to enter into my boys' world. Someplace, I often dare to tred. They are so very different from me. As they should be. And, I guess, that is one more thing for which I am grateful.