A Thank You to Aaron Rodgers on his Birthday

You may think that a Thank You to Aaron Rodgers is a funny topic for a blog about Children of the Church, but let me explain.  I think that having role models are fantastic, especially for children!  I want each of our children to follow God, for my husband and I to guide them, for family and friends to love them and support them, but I also want them to have people to look up to!  For our oldest son Ryan, right now, that person is Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers.  Some of you may not know that he is actually a faith filled man.  He is not outgoing about it like Tim Tebow, but Aaron Rodgers once said "I like the saying from St. Francis of Assisi, ‘Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words.’ I try to live my life in a way that reflects my faith in the Lord.”

So, today, on his birthday, I want to say Thank you to Aaron Rodgers for being an upstanding, hard working role model for our son!

Our son Ryan (almost 5 years old) has had a lot of different role models in his short life.  He loves firemen, mailmen, priests, doctors, police officers, but once he heard about Aaron Rodgers his little life changed!  We started homeschooling this fall, right at the same time that the football season was starting and at first I was frustrated that the Packers were taking so much of my son's attention.  All he wanted to talk about, read about, learn about was the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rodgers.  I quickly learned that one of the beauties of homeschooling is being able to mold learning around our children's likes and dislikes.  We quickly started using football as a way to learn, and Ryan was completely engaged!  He learned how to count by 10's by learning about the yards of the football field, he knows how to read all of the numbers on the back of all of the players jerseys, he is learning how they need to work together as a team, and that there are consequences for when they do something wrong!

Ryan could, eat, sleep, and breath Aaron Rodgers!  When I had him do a project for our school assignment one day, he was supposed to trace his body and then color and talk about things that are special about him.  He wrote Ryan Rodgers #12, Packers and would only color in GREEN!  When he is out and about and people ask him his name his most common response is Ryan "Rodgers"!  Now, usually he is wearing Green Bay gear, so they quickly understand that he is a Mega Fan of Aaron Rodgers!  Talking about wearing Green Bay gear, he loves it SO much that when I finally decide that we NEED to wash his Green Bay Packer's outfits he will wait by the dryer for them to be done to switch right back into them once they are clean!

For Halloween, not only did he dress up as Aaron Rodgers for a few Halloween activities (and was thrilled when everyone commented to him how great he was doing this season!), but he also instead of carving a pumpkin insisted that he decorate it by simply writing "PACKERS" on it! 

Ryan has started to learn how to write and spell in the past few months and he now goes around and labels everything in our home with "Packers" or "Rodgers"!  His bedroom door now says "Ryan Packers, Welcome"  I even found "Packers" on my box of wine the other day (seriously you guys, it's EVERYWHERE!)

Most little boys like to watch cartoons, but Ryan only wants to watch the Green Bay Packers, every day (thank goodness for DVR!)  We had an electrician over at our house one day and they were confused about the Packers game being on the tv, we had to explain that it is ALWAYS a game day at our house!  Ryan get's so excited on game days and takes the games SO SERIOUSLLY.  During the Packers and Dolphin's game this season Ryan was getting so worried that the Packers were not going to win that he started praying "Guardian Angel, please help Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, thank you, Amen!" 

Kids love to read silly stories and classic fairytales at bedtime, but Ryan's favorite is cuddling up with his Packers blanket and reading his Packers year book that he got from his Grama!  Ryan goes to the zoo as Aaron Rodgers, he takes walks, he dresses our dogs in Packers gear, and loves to play football in our living room so much that I think he is going to wear down our carpet!

For Christmas, when most kids ask for toys, all Ryan keeps asking for is a "White Packers Jersey".  He had received his green Aaron Rodgers jersey as a gift when we traveled to Wisconsin this past September with his grandparents and he was CRUSHED when the Packers had their first away game and he realized they were wearing different jerseys!  I'm sure that you could have guessed it by now, but just in case you hadn't, with his 5th birthday approaching, he is so excited to have his party theme be "PACKERS!" 

So, Aaron Rodgers, thank you for being such a great role model, and we hope you have a wonderful birthday!