Team photos

We got our basketball photos on Saturday. In January each guy had his portrait taken holding a ball with a backdrop of fans at a game. Then I had one taken of the three of us so I could put it on a keychain. Lastly, the entire team had their photo taken on the court we actually play on.

I played basketball growing up and briefly tried both soccer and field hockey. Something about people gunning at me while kicking or wielding a thick wooden stick just struck me as insane. I remember the fear I felt in elementary school as some girl came down the field with a soccer ball. How I managed to raise two boys who genuinely like soccer is beyond me.

But I played basketball the full 6 years I could in the town youth league and never once was there a day when professional photographers took our portraits. We never had a team photo taken. And we certainly never had the option to put those images on keychains, water bottles, afghans, clipboards, shirts and on and on.

Keep in mind, my guys play soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter and both soccer and baseball in the spring (don't give me grief about "over scheduling" my kids - they are called The Tornadoes for a reason). That means we could have two kids' images on soccer balls in the fall, Wheaties boxes in the winter, and baseball bats in the spring. All for a small fortune.

But we don't buy all those things. They get a team photo and a set of playing cards, complete with their "stats". As many statistics a 6 year old can compile.