There are many challenges to being a mom of all boys. Aside from the obvious physical differences, there is an entire world of sports that I had to learn about if I wanted to continue living in my home and remain reasonably sane. (I said reasonably; I am nowhere near sane or reasonable.) You learn that during football season, you can’t have a heart attack on a Sunday because no one will come to your rescue. You learn that March Madness has nothing to do with cleaning for Passover, but everything to do with brackets. Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks play, is anything but a garden, and the New Jersey Nets are now in Brooklyn. When a whistle blows in a hockey game and the call is icing, no one brings you a tub of frosting. (I still have no idea what icing is, but am way too familiar with frosting.)

And then, when the season starts to change, and my landscaper pokes all those holes in my lawn, I know that spring training is upon us. I know that the Yankees hate the Red Sox, something having to do with Babe Ruth. The Chicago Cubs are a much loved team that hasn’t won the World Series in a zillion years (but still has a nifty chant, “Hey, Chicago, whaddaya say, the Cubs are gonna’ win today”). And like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, I know that Johan Santana will get injured and miss another season of pitching for my New York Mets. (He already has.)

Now most moms reading this probably have no idea what I am talking about. But my boys know, and my dad knows, and that’s all that matters.

Basically, once you feel you are free and clear after the Super Bowl, that perhaps your boys will want to spend quality time with you biking (ha ha) or cleaning out their closets (ha ha), baseball season is upon us, or as I like to call it, “another excuse for no one doing anything to help dear old mom.”  And that’s okay because I put it on the list of things I do to make sure my boys think I’m the best mom ever (except for when I am screaming at them for something totally unreasonable like doing homework, breaking each other’s arms, closing the refrigerator door…you know, silly things).

When I was younger, my dad and brother would go down to the basement with the transistor radio to listen to the Mets play while putting a shelving system together for some of my mother’s “collectibles” (euphemism for stuff she won’t throw away). The game would be over, the shelf would be assembled and only a handful of screws and bolts would remain. Which could explain why after so few earthquakes in Bergen County, all the shelves lean, precariously, to one side. But that’s the small, crooked price you pay for loving the game. And my family loves the game. All games, of all sports, all the time. And that’s fine with me because when they are happy, I am happy. And when husband #1 takes all three boys to a game without me, I am really happy. Here’s to you finding your family’s true happiness…

By Banji Latkin Ganchrow