I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS

It seems like I've been saying that more and more lately. 

In my mind, I'm still in my 20s, however, 

my body is telling me that I am pushing 40.

On Father's Day, our 12 year old neighbor asked if we would like to play a family game of 

"Capture the Flag".  

Not ever wanting to turn down a challenge, I enthusiastically reply "of course we would!"

When he came back 30 minutes later to see if we were ready, I jokingly said

"we're still working on our uniforms and team name, but we'll be out shortly."

He looked bewildered (and a little scared) and quickly left.

After seeing his reaction, I knew we had to come up with some uniforms and a team name, pronto.

Let me introduce you to the "Black Band-its".

(That's my scary face, in case you couldn't tell)

Get it? We're wearing black and we all have on black head"bands".   Clever, right?

We came out of our house doing jumping jacks, high knees and ready to win this thing.

I think we may have caught her neighbors slightly off guard. 

They were dressed in their regular clothes and had no team name to speak of. 

We definitely had the element of surprise on our side. 

The rules of "Capture the Flag" are long and detailed and widely vary 

depending on which kid is relaying them.

Let's just say, there's a lot of running, chasing and tagging involved.

I made it safely through round one.  Did I mention it was really hot and muggy?

In the heat of round two, as I had just tagged my husband out of jail, 

and was running full speed ahead away from my opponent,

I made the stupid mistake of leaping from the top of my neighbor's stone stairs to the bottom.

As soon as I hit the ground, and I mean literally hit the ground, I thought to myself

"I'm too old for this!".

Seems as though I landed wrong and ended up with a bit of a twisted ankle.

Fortunately, it wasn't too serious and I didn't have to be carted off in an ambulance 

with my sequined headband and war paint on. 

I realized it was all worth it a minute later when my six year old rounded the corner 

and screamed "I've captured their flag".

Game over, we won!

Or did we?

 I could barely walk and my husband didn't seem to be in much better shape himself. 

We decided that perhaps we are too old to play "Capture the Flag" 

The next time, I think we'll just sit on the back porch with our glass of wine and watch.

P.S.  I pulled a muscle tonight when my son's baseball coach made the parents 

play the field at baseball practice.  Again, I'm too old for this!