When you have children you try to provide them with the information and tools to make ‘good decisions,’ just as our parents did with us.  You do all you can to show them the ‘right path’ and hope that when it comes to making choices that they won’t stray too far from that path.  As we all know from our own experiences, however, sometimes mistakes are made and deviations occur.  Hopefully they’re just not too extreme or resulting in a situation that isn’t correctable and at the very least is something we can learn from.

Below is a picture we’ve shared before, it’s one of my favorites that April took of our oldest son and myself at his first baseball game last year when the Cubs were visiting Miller Park.

I’m sure this photo will always make me smile and remember a time of great innocence.  Koeplin is over 3 now and everyday making more and more of his own decisions.  One of which truly alarmed me the other day, as in my mind as a parent it really swayed from the path I’ve tried to layout in front of him.  He said something so outrageous that I had to ask him more than once what he was saying, even though I clearly understood the first time.  He said something along the lines of “I like Cubs, no.  I like Brewers.”

This snow balled into him pretending to be the Brewers when we play t-ball.  This shouldn’t be a big deal, but everytime he hits a ball he runs the bases and triumphantly proclaims that he’s hit a homerun, no matter how far the ball has traveled. After making two trips around the the bases, because apparently that’s what you do when you hit a homer, he proclaims “Brewers win, Brewers win…” over and over until I convince him to take another at bat.  In the past weeks he’s advance so far as to specifically be Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun.

As you can imagine he has some Cubs memorabilia and toys we and other family have gotten him.  One such item is a Cubs Mr. Potato Head.  The other day he asked ‘Why you not get me a Brewers one?.”

I’ve tried to explain things to him in terms he’d better understand.  Such as the Cubs are good guys, the Brewers are bad guys.  If Optimus Prime (he’s a Transformer if you’re not familiar) played baseball he’d play for the Cubs.  I’ve told him that Diego, Dora, Batman, Handy Many, DJ Lance, Big Bird, and even Spongebob are all Cubs fans.  Still he doesn’t get it.

He gets to spend a day or two a week with his grandparents who are Brewer fans and has gotten to watch a lot of games over the summer.  So that’s the source of the influence that has sent him astray, but the truth of the matter is that a brick wall with green ivy, a couple of catching songs and a  losing team can’t  compete with another losing team that has a guy in a Bernie costume going down a slide, fireworks, and giant Sausage guys running around the field.  The Brewers are just more kid friendly.

So we obviously can’t stop him from forming his own opinions or likes.  That’s a lesson I guess we learn as parents, that kids will eventually make their own choices.  All we can do is hope that we’ve prepared them to make good ones.  And it’s not that I hate the Brewers, I always secretly root for them second and if the Cubs aren’t winning wish that at least they were.   However there’s been no Brewer merchandise purchased yet in hopes that by spring training this silly phase will have passed.  It’s a long winter and long time to forget stuff…

And if things don’t change, luckily we have another little boy who hopefully will learn from his brothers mistakes.