So on Thursday afternoon I left for the DotMom Conference in Nashville. My flight was super easy even though I made a total amateur mistake and forgot to check in early on Southwest and thus ended up in the C boarding group. I just couldn’t handle it so I upgraded to the A group when I arrived at the gate and felt really proud of myself when I managed to snag my preferred aisle seat near the front of the plane. All was good and fine until I realized it was going to be a full flight and the passenger who ended up next to me in the middle seat blew her nose no less than 800 times between San Antonio and Nashville.
Sometimes there isn’t enough hand sanitizer.
But, even with the incessant nose-blowing, the flight wasn’t bad because I spent it reading Mindy Kaling’s new book Why Not Me? and I cannot recommend it enough. I find her completely and totally delightful.
Once I arrived in Nashville, we went straight to dinner to discuss logistics for the conference and then headed to the hotel. Sophie’s sister ended up coming by to see us and so we all piled in Sophie’s room and caught up on various things. Meanwhile, I kept calling and texting P and Caroline to see if they’d made it home from soccer practice only to get no answer. At first I wasn’t concerned, but when I hadn’t heard a word from either of them by 9:30 that night I finally texted P and said, “ARE YOU THERE?” and since he knows me well enough to know that text meant I was just shy of calling the police, he called me.
Me: “Hey! I was getting worried! How was soccer practice?”
P: “Well, it was okay. But we’re at the emergency clinic.”
This is what every mother wants to hear when she’s a plane ride away. As it turns out, Caroline had gotten tangled up with another player during practice and everyone heard her hip pop loudly when she landed. She was in a lot of pain and her coach said they should go get it X-rayed. P was going to try to do all this under the radar so I wouldn’t panic, but then the clinic had a big emergency case come in and, long story short, P and Caroline didn’t get home from the clinic until midnight.
Fortunately, all the scans and X-rays showed that nothing was torn or broken and she’s just going to be sore for the next several days.
Anyway, the conference started Friday afternoon and it was the most fun. Christy Nockels led worship and she was beyond amazing. Here’s a picture of Christy, Sophie and me. Oh wait. I didn’t take any pictures because I am an idiot who apparently can’t multi-task.
After it was all over on Saturday afternoon, Sophie and I went back to the hotel. The Aggies were playing Arkansas at 6:00 and we had a party to attend at 7:00, but I figured I could at least watch the first quarter or so and get a feel for the game. And here’s where I have to tell you that all weekend long at the conference, Razorback fans kept coming up to me and telling me congratulations because they knew they wouldn’t win. But I had a bad feeling. I have a gift that some people might call “Football Unagi” otherwise known as “Football Salmon Skin Roll”.
And so as I watched the first quarter in my hotel room, I was a little like this.
Sophie and I headed to the party at halftime and I continued to monitor the game on my phone until my friend Mary Katherine pulled up the live feed on her phone for me. And with six minutes left in the fourth quarter, this was me.
What is this game of American football of which you speak? It is dead to me.
It was about this time that Sophie and I said our goodbyes and left the party. I had given up all hope and said I’d just follow the stats on my phone (cue the sad trombone), but Sophie – in an act that has cemented her status as MY HERO FOREVER – pulled her car over until she was able to get the live feed on her phone COMPLETE WITH GAME AUDIO OVER HER CAR SPEAKERS.
(This is what a friend does when they understand your level of crazy because they also have a touch of that same crazy. And she did this for me in spite of the fact that her Mississippi State Bulldogs were in the fourth quarter of a big game at Auburn. She laid down her football life for her friend.)
(Also, she saw me at a level of football insanity that I usually reserve for Gulley only who, by the way, was texting me throughout this entire ordeal.)
And, at that very moment, as if the Aggies knew that I was able to see it, Kyle Allen threw a long pass to Josh Reynolds. Then Tre Carson ran it in for a touchdown. But there was so little time left and we needed the two-point conversion. Which made me feel like Jesse Spano in that Saved By the Bell episode where she takes amphetamines and freaks out. “I’M SO EXCITED! I’M SO EXCITED! I’M SO SCARED!”
Yes. That.
But we got the two-point conversion to tie it up. Then Arkansas fumbled and we recovered it and let the clock run down so we could attempt a field goal to win the game. By this time, Sophie and I were sitting in the parking lot of our hotel but I continued to watch the game on her phone lest I ruin ALL THE GOOD MOJO. This was me.
And our kicker missed the kick and sent the game into overtime. I will confess I said some words you won’t hear in Sunday School.
But then Kyle Allen threw a touchdown pass to Josh Reynolds in overtime and we were up by seven.
Arkansas had a chance to tie it up and I don’t think I breathed for four and a half minutes. Finally, DeVante Harris batted down the pass on fourth and four and the Aggies won.
I was so elated that I didn’t even care that I had essentially aged eighty-four years in the span of ten minutes.
And given all of this football insanity, the t-shirt that my friend Athena made for me with a quote from Nobody’s Cuter Than You and brought to give me at DotMom has never felt more true.