We Love HER

Let's talk about Erica, a.k.a. The Wise Libero in our comments section. I first met Erica my first year coaching at Sherwood. She was playing volleyball, but simultaneously playing softball as well. I remember thinking she must be something special for the coaches to be ok with her only attending half of the practices and still be allowed to play. There were some days where she would run into the gym with all her catcher's gear on, sprint to the locker room, change her clothes and then run onto the floor to play a volleyball game.
And what do you know? She WAS something special. The girl literally went an entire season and only practiced with us 4 or 5 times and she was one of our best players. She would've been a college volleyball player, if only the evil clutches of softball had not seized her first (like, when she was 7). Alas, she did not start volleyball until a highschooler, and by then - it was too late. Her vertical jump would not exceed 4.5 millimeters.

Anyway....at first glance, she doesn't seem the type to like kids, but they are drawn to her like some sort of Pied Piper. She babysat our kids the first time, and they were hooked. They LOVED her - she played with them, she was fun, she had boundless energy, she would play trains and do exactly what we want her to. Of course mom lets us eat butter.

In the 2 years since, she has become our primary/only babysitter and on more than one occasion, the boys have asked me "where's Erica?" or thrown the line, "I want Erica to do it!", and on more than a few occasions, "No! Like this! Like Erica does it!"

One night she had watched the boys, put them to bed and gone home around 11. That night around 3am, AJ had come wandering down the hall crying, in one of his late night sleep-talking, incoherent funks. I picked him up to take him back to bed and he says, "No! I waaaaaaant Ewiiiiiiiica!" ::sob, sob, cry, cry::

She's going to be a doctor. A brain surgeon. She says she'll give me a surgery free of charge, should ever I need one. Her birthday was last week. She's catches for Russian softball pitchers. We're going skydiving together soon. She hates pink. She has a one-armed putt-putt swing. And she makes cookies for her creepy neighbor.

Today she came over to our house and played with my boys. Not because she had to, because she wanted to. She let me take Tyler and run to the grocery store, and while I was gone, she loaded O and A into her truck and took them to the park and the zoo.

If you try to steal her away from us, I'll kill you with a blunt object.

And if we ever move away, she's coming with us. And that's all there is to it.