My kids have learned to play Dominoes at the after school program they attend, and now they are teaching me. It’s a more complicated game than I thought. I’m liking it.

You wanna know what else I am liking? Football. Yeah, I know, that’s crazy talk.

When I was a child, I thought as a child and I (un)spake as a child. But when I became a grown-ass woman of 47, I realized that just because silence during tv (and meals and breathing) was the rule in my childhood home, I didn’t have to keep living that way. And I realized that just because a man watching sports alone and silently was something I witnessed throughout childhood, that didn’t mean all men did it that way.

Now I watch, sometimes with an explainer, and sometimes just with my kids. And I am here to tell you, we were robbed in the third quarter last night by some BS calls. And nobody had to explain that part to me–I figured it out all by myself.

I’m understanding more why men gather with friends to watch the game that is playing on their own tv at home. Because football watching is more fun as a group activity. And this, boys and girls, is how I’ve moved from a Super Bowl watcher to a … well, fan may be too strong a word, but tolerater is definitely not strong enough.