Kids are a Pain

Before my 30th birthday, my wife -- the older, wiser and more athletic of the two of us -- warned me that once my biological odometer turned that things would start to go wrong with my body. Stupid little activities that never before bothered me would suddenly resort in an avalanche of bills my muscles would struggle to pay.

"Bah!" I said, and downed another Shiner Bock.

A few days after that conversation, I threw my back out swimming in our pool.

In the years since, I have paid more attention to the subtle signs my body sends me to ease up. For example, after years of playing multiple softball games a week, I realized it was time to hang up the cleats shortly after a routine groundball to me at second base turned into an ER visit for seven stitches to close up a split left eyebrow. When the reflexes go, so must you, I sadly must report.

Lapses in judgment, though, sometimes occur. Most times, the blame falls on my kids.

It started a few weekends back after some friends and I took a long weekend at a golf resort. I survived 63 holes in 72 hours, encounters with hordes of New Jeseryians loaded on Märzen and sauerbraten hurling Oktoberfest beer steins and a fairway run-in with a black bear.

However, while the other members of my group, most of whom were younger than I, swigged Arnold Palmers or Gatorade on the course, I was popping open frosty ones every time the beverage cart girls were within sight. While my friends took hits of generic Advil from Costco-sized bottles, I shook down the snack machine for mini-donuts. While they soaked their weary muscles in the hot tub, I was backstroking under the starry mountain sky in the heated outdoor pool.

Life was good and I felt great. I felt invincible for the first time in ages.

With this in my heart and mind, I enthusiastically assisted at both my children's soccer practices later that week: running a few drills with them, playing some goalie and even challenging them at suicide races.

The results were not pretty.

Black and blue right big toe.

Sore left shoulder.

Gimpy left hip.

Creaky left knee.

All in the span of two hours. Damn grade schoolers.

"Hey, Dad," piped up my 7-year-old son when we got home that night. "Can we wrestle down in the basement?"

"No," I told him, "unless you want to wrestle the sock off my aching foot because your Dad can't bend at the waist right now."

He stormed off in a huff. The effects of the aging process on the middle-age beer drinker are something they need to do a better job of teaching in second-grade science.

Today, nearly two weeks later, I'm finally off the DL. My big toe is even the correct color again.

What have I learned from this experience? You know, beside that a group of pre-preteens with moderate dribbling and shooting skills can stick me at will?

I learned that I'm old and getting older and that I'm not going to be able to do this stuff forever.

Therefore, I had better get down there in the basement tonight and put the boy in a half nelson before he grows up any more.