The Power of Audible Play Calling

When a quarterback changes the play at the line of scrimmage it’s called “Audibling.” Yes, that’s a legitimate verb-ing of the word “audible.”

Other ways to say it: He called an audible. He made adjustments. He changed the play.

The QB sees something he doesn’t like (or something he does like, maybe a favorable match up or a weakness in the defense) and he changes the play. The ability to adjust on the fly is one of those skills veteran quarterbacks acquire after thousands of snaps, thousands of defensive reads, thousands of hours watching tape. The best quarterbacks make the right play-changes: they recognize something, make adjustments, and turn the play into a big gain.

It’s their experience that justifies their audibling.

So how do I get away with it? I have just one child. I did not raise my little siblings, have nieces or nephews on whom to practice, nor a close friend who showed me the ropes. I’ve always been a rookie at this. What gives me the confidence to repeatedly call audibles where Hollie is concerned?

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a change junkie. I don’t want the same thing to happen every day. I don’t want the routine that is so ingrained that weeks or years pass and I don’t even notice they’ve slipped by. While Hollie has a schedule, I provide as much flexibility within that schedule as I can.

I like to call it Mickey Mouse Parenting, working off a checklist. As long as all of these things get done before we move forward, we’re okay; they don’t have to be done a specific order.

Maybe it comes from experience with software implementations which try to do as many things simultaneously as possible. Maybe it’s the milestone approach my PhD program took where things happened concurrently. I have a flexible approach because I know the best laid plans are only plans until you start to execute them. Then they’re life and life sometimes has rogue linebackers who sneak through the line and sack the quarterback. Life sometimes jumps up for the interception and turns your running backs into tacklers.

In every play, you have to be ready to shift from offense to defense. 

It helps if you call an audible. If you adjust to the defensive schema you see.

I have always called audibles in my relationship with Charlie. He’s used to it. Toward the end of the day I might call and let him know we’re doing happy hour this evening, so meet us at the bar. We used to make spontaneous road trips, extend weekends into Monday, and buy last-minute tickets for shows.

We once decided on a Friday night to go to the Daytona 500 on Sunday. We got in the car Saturday afternoon, met a buddy in Florence, drove through the night, and made it to the race three hours before green flag.

Admittedly, we’re less impulsive now. But our Friday driveway parties are part of my audible-calling nature, trivia night at the bar is an audible I keep in my back pocket, and I very rarely turn down an invitation to go anywhere unless it requires giving up my Sunday.

Where Hollie is concerned, audibles can mean instability. 

It can mean she comes home from school and I’m not here because I added an extra meeting downtown. Maybe after swim team we have to go to the grocery store or maybe we have to pick up a friend’s kid from school today. Audibles make teachers and administrators crazy because they have hundreds of children. But I have just one. And she can bend, flex, go-with-the-flow because I resisted that type-A parenting advice of scheduling your baby to keep your own sanity. A schedule for Hollie would have made me miserable.

Being able to audible means being able to adjust to current circumstances. Adjusting doesn’t mean accepting, it just means recognizing that your wide receiver is double-teamed which means your running back can get open. So change the play.

An Overdue Thanks to Someone Whose Love I Earned

I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to earn my family. 

There are some who’d tell you family is born of you — kin, they call it — trees and blood and heritage and all that shit.

I have that.

I have the people I’m stuck with, the ones who annoy and degrade me, who take me for granted and disrespect me. I have those. I also have people I’m profoundly grateful to be related to. The ones I know I’m lucky to call my own.

My family, though, is different. 

I consider my family to be those people I’ve chosen for my inner circle. They’re the ones whose claim has little to do with blood, something to do with longevity, and everything to do with faith.

My family is made up of people who took a chance on loving me and received my love in return. They gave me their loyalty and I gave them mine in return. They stand by me, proud to know me, and I stand by them, proud to know them.

I learned a long time ago that you can choose your family. 

You may not be able to choose your kin. Them sonsofbitches might just follow you around and try to drag you into their swamp. But your family, they’re something special.

One of the earliest members of my family is my brother Josh. We met as friends in eighth grade and remained as such through school. When I went to college at Clemson, he’d moved to Atlanta to live with his mom and step-dad Randy. So every weekend, he was in Clemson and we were partying and telling people we were brother and sister.

Randy and Patty (Josh’s mom) had been high school sweet hearts who reconnected after they’d each had marriages and kids and divorces. Their marriage was something we thought was equal parts tragic (“Why didn’t they stay together in the first place?”) and romantic (“They found one another again!”).

Teachable Moments on the Side of a Mountain

There’s a great recurring joke on Modern Family wherein Cam and Mitchell are attempting to respond to Lily’s behavior and they declare the instance a “teachable moment.”

It reminds the rest of us that we can react irrationally to our children or we can help them understand the impact of their behavior.

Over the years, Charlie and I have had multiple teachable moments with Hollie and I’m proud to say we’ve both gained emotional maturity. We very rarely respond irrationally to Hollie’s behavior.

But even the most self-controlled adults can lose their cool on the side of a mountain.

Here are a few universal truths that must be stated before this story can be fully appreciated:

First, skiing is hard. Maneuvering long sticks on one’s feet, the discomfort of the boots tightly locked down, the arbitrary waving of the poles, hurtling down a hill with nothing but a fall or a tree to stop inertia, all of these combine to make the whole thing truly terrifying.

Raising a Fighter

Hollie’s a picky eater. She’s got the foods she likes and she sticks with them. She’s an only child. She likes her alone time. She’s also an independent child. She doesn’t like being bossed around by me and Charlie.

More than once on vacation we found ourselves in a standoff with Hollie.

Over going to play golf. She didn’t want to. We did.

Over leaving the wave pool at the water park. She didn’t want to. We did.

Over going out for dinner. She didn’t want to. We did.

Over eating what she’d ordered. She refused.

Over leaving the Hilton Resort Orlando after checkout on Thursday. We had to.

We fight over brushing her hair.

We fight over brushing her teeth.

These days it seems like we fight about pretty much everything. Which is a good thing. It means she trusts us enough to state her desires with some confidence they’ll be met.

It means she has specific desires and is learning how to rationally explain those desires. 

I ask questions to get her to elaborate on her logic. I sometimes let her win.

Being willing to fight means she’s assertive enough to get what she wants. It means she won't be bullied, go along with the crowd, or believe her wants don’t matter.

Then, last week, I read this blog post about letting a little girl say “no.” And I did what I think the blogger wanted me to do, I really thought about it.

Mom to one, just one, my one

I’m a pretty good mom but I’m not good with other people’s kids.

I don’t know those children as well as I know mine, haven’t grown used to their voices, their questions, or their habits. Perhaps I might. Were I around them a lot, I might.

Our friend Torie, Hollie’s preschool teacher, Torie’s good at other people’s children.

But me, I kinda suck at them. Here are a few reasons why (cuz bloggers love lists):

1. I don’t take their injuries seriously enough.

My friend Kevin brought his kids to the park for a playdate with us and while he’d taken the eldest to the bathroom, the middle fell and busted his face on a step.

Bless his heart, that kid wailed.

“Oh my,” I said, “let’s go get your dad.”

I didn’t know how to hug him or help him or comfort him or even staunch the bleeding cuz, wow, that sure does look awful.

She's five, reluctantly, on her birthday

We are in Brando, racing down the interstate, and my daughter says, “Mom, spell grass.”

“G-R-A-S-S,” I say.

Photo by KDW 2013

“Spell flower.”

“F-L-O-W-E-R,” I say.

“Spell cloud.”

“C-L-O-U-D.”

“Spell iPod.”

It’s Hollie Bear’s birthday. That’s right, a full year since I wrote this.

I can’t believe it.

There’s a song Hollie and I think of as our song in which the lyrics say, “If you only knew how long I had waited for someone to come along and change my life the way you’ve done.”

Trust me, I'm a Mom

The problem with being a new parent is that you really don't know who to trust. There is so much parenting advice, so many experts, and so many people willing to offer their opinion. All of those people, mostly parents themselves, know what worked for them. And their kids. And that's a problem, because they're not you. And this isn't their kid.

As a new mommy I always assumed if anything distrssed HB it was probably my fault. I still believe that and she's three and four on her birthday.

Mickey Mouse Parenting

The house in Easley has been on the market for a month. So we've worked "cleaning" into the morning routine and now every day before we leave for work and school we pull back the curtains, wipe down the sinks, and put everything away. It's amazing how keeping the place clean has become habit. 

I fought establishing a routine for HB. I like variety and I wanted her to be able to go-with-the-flow. Structure meant that when the routine broke she would be incapable of coping. I've seen two year olds who missed their 1 p.m. nap. Ugly.

In the mornings we have a list of 5 things that need to be done (breakfast, dressed, teeth, hair, shoes) and they can be done in any order she chooses.