Wrestling Camp

Today N is at an all day wrestling camp. This is very exciting to him because he likes to wrestle his dad. And he usually wins. I saw a flier about this camp and showed it to my husband, who said, “Hmm.” That means, “Let’s not.” I noticed that it was for a wide age-range of kids, and I thought it might be a good introduction to the sport, so I pursued the idea. After all, there is a possibility that he might be able to manage his school’s wrestling team, so I figured he would need to know stuff about it. Like the rules and like how hard it really is. The only slightly unnerving thing was the liability release, which was pretty descriptive about what all injuries could occur, but we won’t go into that. (That whole atlantoaxial instability issue . . . recent x-rays showed N’s to be fine.)

I needed some things from the library the other day, so I took N and a friend, and we loaded up on books about wrestling (and other stuff). He impressed his dad that evening with some wrestling facts and rules. Ted shot a glance at me. I put on my angelic smile and did a praying hands gesture at him. Later, he sent an inquiry to the director of the camp, via email. Ted explained that N has Down syndrome, may be slightly too old for the camp, it could be full, etc., etc. He gave him every “out”, but the guy quickly replied that he would be happy to have him! (We have done this numerous times for various events, including a week long music camp at our local university, and have never been turned down.) I was nearly giddy because I knew that N would be.

Later that night we went to Starbucks, where we had some tasty cold drinks made by our favorite employee, Manly A. As we were hanging out, I heard Ted describing the upcoming event to N. “OH PLEASE, YES, Dad, PLEASE!!”. Ted smiled and said, “OK.” (Not “Hmm”.)