Keep The Avatar Or Ditch It?

I just thought I’d put this up for a vote. I chose Bart Simpson on a skateboard for our avatar. Is there any other choice someone else might want to make? Maybe something that is more suitable to our family blog? Any suggestions or should we leave little Bart skateboarding? Thanks! And, BTW, will our other blog users please start posting? I’m starting to feel lonely

Stop Living My Life For Me!

After all my bragging about Jesse recently being recruited to play football at Brockport and, most recently at Ithaca, he’s suddenly decided he might “not even want to play football”. Of course I was upset. Getting a football scholarship would be a fantastic opportunity for a kid that comes from a small-town, one parent, not exactly affluent, family. When you consider the cost of most colleges and universities, receiving any scholarship would take an incredible amount of financial responsibility away from the student and the parent. I know that if Jesse gives this up, in favor of god knows what, perhaps staying here in this rinky dink town and working at WalMart like his mother, he’ll regret it not too far down the road.

So, what’s a mother to do? He’s  just told me that I’m trying to live his life for him (his exact words) because I reminded him he needs to bring his game films with him to Brockport this Saturday. I’m not sure what’s going on here. Is he getting cold feet about going away to college because of his girlfriend? Neither Brockport nor Ithaca are far away from here at all.

Would someone please tell me what it takes to knock some sense into a 17 year old kid’s head? Should I back off and let him make his own decisions? I, personally, don’t see anything wrong with a mom wanting her children to do better than she did. I just don’t want to see him end up going to a local community college and giving up his dream (and, yes, playing college and even pro football has been his dream for a long time) just to stay close to home (and his girlfriend). With the amount of competition out there, children need any advantage they have available. Letting a good opportunity go by is foolish.