A Little Boy and His Helmet

Monday night while waiting for our supper to finish baking, T and his Daddy were playing a little game of football in the living room...a pretty regular occurrence at our house. I was down in the kitchen listening to the sounds of the game when my ears heard this, "Daddy, I need a football helmet." Music to a football-loving father's ears. Michael immediately came running down to me, tears welling up in his eyes, and said, "Did you hear what he said? Did you? Did you? He asked for a football helmet. He needs a football helmet." Michael then proceeded to share with me that this was one of his proudest moments...."It's like your little girl coming to you and saying she needs a, a, a, I don't even know what to compare it to! Can we please go out and get him a football helmet? Tonight?"

Forty minutes later, our stomachs full and our mission clear, we were in the van headed to our local Sporting Goods store. What did we find? Hockey helmets, batting helmets, catcher's helmets, recreational sliding helmets, bike helmets....but no football helmets. Not to be easily discouraged, we bundled back up and headed across the street to Toys R Us. Surely they would be able to help fulfill our little boy's wish. We walked in the doors of this toy maze and headed straight to the sports section.....only to find that they, too, were not stocking football helmets at this time. Come on people! The Super Bowl is mere weeks away. Football season is not over! Bedtime for T was quickly approaching but we made one last attempt at locating the prize. Certainly our good friends at Target could help us out! They have everything! Everything, that is, except football helmets.

Down, but not defeated, we headed home. We agreed to resume our search the coming weekend when time was not working against us. The next morning at work, I shared our adventure with my co-worker, an avid football fan and mom to three boys. She shared in our dismay that a football helmet in January could be so elusive. But, she then recalled that she had a football helmet at her house that no longer had a home on her boys' heads and so she asked if she might pass it along to T. WONDERFUL!! This was a much better solution than the $40 helmets Michael had found on-line the previous evening.

This morning, the helmet was delivered and T could not believe his eyes! His first response, "Daddy needs to see it!" Oh, precious little one, Daddy is at work. But, we did call Daddy so T could tell him about his new gift and then we took some pictures of him and emailed them to Michael at work. Take a look for yourself.
I have a feeling there will be quite the football game on our living room floor tonight!