Hoarding Pencils Redux

With only three weeks of school left, my son is still hoarding pencils. At school he has found the following types:

• #2 yellow pencil
• “2nd grade is #1″ pencil
• Sparkly blue pencil
• “5th grade is awesome” pencil

His favorite is the sparkly blue pencil because, well, it’s sparkly. At present he has exactly 30 pencils in his desk. His teacher knows about his problem. M-ito has been heard to say recently, “I will hand in all but 5 this week.” Or… that may have been Mom-ita.

Pegged – A definition

“Pegged” (def) noun – hitting a player as they are running towards a base in baseball or kickball. When used with in a baseball it is hoped that the ball being used is soft (foam) and not a hard-ball – otherwise injuries will follow…

“You can peg him with the ball to make him out.”

or

“Peg-him!”

or

“You’ve been pegged!”

Two Hand Touch

M-ito and his friend K-ito wanted to learn how to play football. M-ito knew nothing about the game and K-ito had a smattering of phrases and terms but no real knowledge of the game. I played eleven years of ball through high school. I figured, how hard could it be? We were at K-ito’s home with a bar-b-q in the backyard heating up, Mom-ita with K-ito’s mom and friends socializingj. M-ito, K-ito and me were in the large front yard (large enough for a game of nerf football) and the boys told me their desire.

“How do you play? The rules,” K-ito asked.

“Yeah,” M-ito added lowering his head. “I don’t know how to play. It’s confusing.”

I took the nerf in hand and tried to explain. “That big tree over there in line with that bush over there, that’s where you want to run the ball into. That’s your end zone where you score a touchdown.”

“Then do you kick the ball?” K-ito asked.

“For extra points, but we won’t do that here. We’ll keep it simple. You run the ball in there you get a point and we’ll play to five.”

“Don’t you get points if you hit the tree with a kick? You know the things that stand up in the air…”

“The goal posts?”

“Yeah. The goal posts.”

“We’ll forget about them for the moment. Just run the ball into the end zone.”

“Then,” Kenny added, “you have to throw the ball onto the ground like this.” He spiked the ball and raised his hands up into the air.

“Okay. We’ll use that. And you’ll have 4 downs -”

“Downs?” M-ito asked.

“Tries, to get the ball into the end zone for a touchdown or a score. Four tires and then I get the ball and try to get into the other end zone, between the pitchback and the bush over there.”

They both nodded but didn’t seem to understand.

“We’ll play touch with two hands,” K-ito said, then demonstrated the technique.

“Right. No tackle. Just two-hand-touch.”

“What’s that mean?” M-ito asked.

“When you’re touched with two hands you’re down and have to stop and try again. You can pass the ball forward but you have to catch it or it’s an incomplete pass.”

“Why?” M-ito asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just the rules.”

“Can we play it’s okay to miss and still score?”

“You mean drop the ball?”

M-ito nodded.

“Sure.”

I tried to explain a lateral pass but that didn’t go anywhere so we just kicked off and started.

Sometimes it’s best to just play. It was them against me. Every time we scored we spiked the ball. They allowed me to pass to myself. I taught them the faint and the juke – fake left run right, fake right run left. We got bit up by mosquitos and collected a few grass burns on our knees. Another dad helped me out later and each of the two games the Dad-ditos lost exactly 5 points to 4.

Declaration of the Playing of Sports

M-ito wants to play lacrosse. He learned about it in gym class – which is really neat if you think about it. I remember in gym class doing 8-count burpees (squat thrusts I think they were officially called) and then not much else. And that was in high school. I don’t ever remember being taught skills in gym – though we must have been, right? How else did I learn how to throw a ball and play football and basketball? My brother didn’t teach me everything, did he? Well, in M-ito’s school this year they did skills practice in baseball (t-ball), basketball, soccer, and lacrosse. By 5th grade every child must choose a sport and play on the school team. There are two teams, a traveling/serious team and a for fun team. though it sounds very much like an A-side B-side kind of thing. We’ll have to see how it works as we get closer to 5th grade. Thankfully he’s only finishing up 2nd grade now.

But back to the gym class. They brought out lacrosse sticks and the kids were taught how to throw the ball, scoop and rake the ball into the net of the stick (what is that part of the stick called?) and somehow M-ito liked it. He came home and declared he was going to play lacrosse in 5th grade. “You know you get to whack each other with a stick?” he told us.

“That’s why you want to play?” I asked.

“It’s fun.”

“The whacking?”

He didn’t answer.

I have two reactions to this. The first is, wow, that’s great. He’s got some interest in a team sport and wants to learn more about it. I played lots of team sports and overall they were a good thing for me to do. The second reaction is, did it have to be lacrosse? It’s one of the few sports I really don’t know anything about. I didn’t play it – never actually picked up a stick and threw a ball or had even a catch with one. I know nil about it. How am I going to get involved coaching and all that kind of thing if I know nothing about it? Okay I had a third thought. Did M-ito pick this sport because he knew I knew nothing about it? Naaaa, that’s too much about me and not enough about my son.

We learned that a friend of his from school was going to a week-long summer sport camp in lacrosse and baseball (one week of each) and Mom-ita quickly looked into it for M-ito. M-ito said he wants to do both. The camp has a lot of college students and coaches working with the kids – a 3-1 ratio is advertised. They’ll be arranged by age and skill level. It’ll be four days each week 9am-1:30pm each day. A number of phone calls and emails later and Mom-ita had two other friends and M-ito signed up for a week of each. Mom-ita is a wonder at these things.

Since then I’ve watched some lacrosse on TV (we all did last night – a college game), talked to two friends who played in college and picked up a stick and played a little with a ball. So I’ve learned a few things about the game even if I’m still just an inch away from knowing nothing about the sport. My concerns are:

• It’s a contact sport and M-ito hasn’t, up until now, really been a very physical sport player – though that may be changing. He said he didn’t like soccer a month ago because in recess they played too rough. This was after months of saying he liked the game. I had to explain to him that in a real soccer game there were rules and a referee and that kind of play wasn’t really allowed. He has told me he’d never play rugby after watching a game when he was 3 and hearing about all the injuries I received over the 16 years I played. “That’s too rough,” he’s said many times. Mom-ita was thrilled to hear him say that.
• As a follow-up to point one above – they wear shoulder pads and helmet’s and gloves on their hands and there is something called stick-checking that speaks to M-ito’s earlier comment about “whacking each other with their sticks.). Oh yeah and he has to get a mouthpiece.
• I have no idea about the coaching – whether it’ll be good, bad, or indifferent. And coaching is so important to both a good sport and a good social experience. Will they promote good sportsmanship? Will it be age appropriate?
• There’s a lot of running in the game – always good for kids to run around. And he’ll be outside playing the whole time and in the summer kids should be outside playing on grass and running around. This is not a concern but I had to add it here to balance out the rest.

I’m glad he’s going to try these two sports, both lacrosse and baseball – he should try different sports. And baseball is a whole ‘nother story. I still remember the first time I tried to have a catch with him. We bought mitts and a ball (a hard ball – what was I thinking?) and the first time I threw the ball to M-ito it hit him in the chest and that was all we did for another year with baseball. It didn’t occur to me how much skill and hand-eye coordination goes into having a catch with a ball and mitt. I should have thought that one through. But recently, in gym again (yeah gym!) they’ve been playing t-ball and he’s become interested again. We’ve had a number of catches down at the playground with soft rubber balls and as of yesterday a denser one – working our way back up towards a hard ball. So… he’ll have the chance to learn the skills of both games and play with some friends without committing to a long season of play – which he would have to do if he played on a team. So… again, this seems like a good thing too.

And… I think Mom-ita will have to work that week so I should be able to take him to the first few days and watch the whole thing. I’ll bring my lawn chair, a good book, or maybe my computer and some work (no, no… don’t think that way!). Or maybe I’ll bring my stick (we’re going to get one for each of us today I think so we can have a catch) and my mitt, just in case they need an extra hand. You never know. When you’re a Dad-dito it’s good to be prepared.

Hot Dogs in my Hair

We’re in the car together, all three of us, heading towards Austino’s for his pick-up before heading in to school.

” Mom-ita,” M-ito says, ” you know in art we’re drawing portraits of each other. I’m drawing a portrait of N-ito and he’s drawing one of me. Some people are still on the sketching part. Mom-ita, I gave him a suggestion. N-ito is kind of drawing my hair like this -” in the back seat I could see him place his hand on his bangs and move it downward to the ends of his hair, “and it looks like I have hotdogs in my hair. You know. So I told him to please not draw me with hot dogs in my hair.”

A few minutes later we have Austino in the back seat and we’re all off to school. We play some improv games like make up a commercial for a crazy product like a sweat scraper, a squirrel whacker, or an orange scooper. Many of the products explode. All can be ordered 24 hours a day because there’s always an operator standing by, and many of the products are from Ronco.

Still, nothing compares to hot dogs in your hair.

Birthday Card

M-itos Birthday Card from Dad-dito

I made this for M-ito for his birthday. Soy pequeno pero poderoso is the saying. I am small but powerful. I told him to remember that. I only wish he’d forget that when I want him to go to bed.

Small Gems

1. My son is in his PJ’s. He’s bent over almost double, pulling his pants down off of his butt and back up onto his waist like a rapid fire mooning project. Mom-ita and I ask him what he’s doing.

“I’m just getting the static out of them,” M-ito says.

2. M-ito is standing at the table doing his homework. He’s playing with the newest toy that’s sweeping his school, silly bands (different colored and shaped rubber bands).

“You’re addicted to them,” Mom-ita says.

“Nooooo,” M-ito says. “The only thing I’m addicted to is shiny objects.”

Games for an 8 year old

My son’s birthday list was short this year so he got what he asked for and then some. Here’s the top ten so far:

• The Legendary Starfy for the DS – don’t get me started on the DS again!
• Scribblenaughts for the DS
• Magic the Gathering starter set – for 12 and up age but I played it when I was younger and if you work with the small print rules book it can work. Some of the imagery is disturbing (fantasy art work at it’s best and in some cases a bit gruesome so get a starter set of heros and natures creatures or something like that and stay away from the pestilence and undead decks)
• Yu-Gi-Oh starter set – this says for 6 and up but I’m having trouble figuring out the rules and I’m almost 50. Still… it is very popular and it looks like it’s fun once you get the rules down.
• Nano Hex Bugs – these are creepy bug robots but they are cool in a creepy sort of way. You can race them all over the floor if you make up a track of books.
• Samarkand – M-ito is fascinated with the silk road since we saw the exhibit at the Museum of Natural History so this caught his eye. I’m not sure if it’ll be good or not but the game box says 8 and up. The jury’s still out. The game materials are of a high quality especially neat are the small wooden camels.
• Bicycle – what more is there to say?
• Prince of Persia Legos – he’s already building it. It was the first toy he’s opened up and actually played with other than the DS.
• Settlers of Catan – It’s actually an expansion set but we’ve played the original and it’s a lot of fun, if a little complicated. This is a thumbs up.
• Electro-Gadget 200 – A great electronic circuit game for science buffs.

I can’t believe there’s no Pokemon on this list! He still watches the movies and TV show and loves to play it on his DS so don’t rule any Pokemon out just yet. There just weren’t any Pokemon gifts available that he didn’t already have…

8th Birthday: A Save-the-World Party

I find my son’s birthday to be a number of things: sad, anxiety provoking, challenging, tiring, and at some point, hopefully just a little happy. This year we did a home party again. Mom-ita took care of all the arrangements like, food, who was coming, invitations, speaking to M-ito about everything, and helping him to make his birthday list. At 8, my son is still very much into birthdays. I hope he stays that way for a while.

My job as the Dad-dito was, as it has been in the past, to take care of the entertainment (I have been the entertainment the last three years as the yoga teacher for a personalized class two years in a row, and this year as the designer of the save-the-world from Ratzo treasure hunt), pick up the food the morning of the party, order the cake from Cupcake bakery, then pick it up, call my family and make sure they know the date and can come, buy the gifts on M-ito’s list, and help out the day of the party as opposed to getting in the way.

This year my father came with Jocelita, Max’s grandmother (my father’s girlfriend who has taken on the role of a grandmother – it’s a long story but that’s how it works some days) and they arrived with her in tears and him in a grouchy, angry mood. They were the first to arrive. Mom-ita was stressed. I was stressed. Four out of five people in the apartment were stressed. Oh joy. People were coming over, and M-ito was hanging out waiting, playing and already enjoying being the birthday boy even with this madness in the background. I think he didn’t notice what was going on and as his friends arrived (six in all – a small group this year and that was a blessing) he got wrapped up in them. I got wrapped up in occupying my father and listening to Jocelyn and cutting up the fruit salad and regular salad. I put my father to work on drawing characters for the save-the-world game and hoped, hoped, hoped, he would be nice to Max, whom I also asked to draw some characters for the game. My father tends to critique rather than help when it comes to drawing and M-ito is a good artist in his own right but needs to be encouraged not critiqued.

The save-the-world treasure hunt had the evil Ratzo trying to rule the world through the kid’s parents with hand sanitizer – vaporizing spray. I’d hidden  clues around the apartment and throughout the building (laundry, garden, mailbox bulletin board) all written in code with tricks and traps everywhere (every other step of the stairs to the garden was poison to the touch, green paper was poison and some clues were written on green paper, a puzzle of paper pieces was inside a green paper folder). I gave them antidote cards for when they were poisoned so they could keep playing the game, broke then into two teams, girls and boys, code books to be able to crack my code, a storyline to work from and 30 minutes to find Ratzo’s switch that would turn all parents armed with hand sanitizer into child vaporizing machines. I was up until 1:30am the night before setting it all up.

It’s easy to understand the feelings of anxiety, challenge, exhaustion and a little happiness. But why would I be sad? Well, my son is getting older and so am I. It is both wonderful and sad at the same time. I want him to grow up and be a man but I also want him to stay my little boy. Such a simple statement and filled with, for me so much emotion. But that is the nature of birthdays. They make me review life, both my son’s and my own and many times that is painful. So, given that, I try to find some happiness in the story of my son’s birthday, day. The smile on his face as his friends race across the apartment building trying to outrun the clock to find Ratzo’s switch that’s in the refrigerator, of course, dodging parents trying to sanitize their hands (I gave everybody hand sanitizer and they kept asking the kids if they wanted to clean their hands – the kids all ran away screaming NOONONONONONONO!). And watching him open his gifts, blow out the candles on his cake. All the things that make up a birthday celebration of turning a year older and a year wiser. And my son is both. Birthdays need to be celebrated as small rites of passage along the way of life. I need to remember how wonderful it is that he is growing up and learning about this wonderful and challenging world that we live in as human beings.

And also remember, that I  now have a full year to go before I have to do it all again. Whew.

A Day of Knights Part 2: The Search for Swords and Black Knights

I found nerf broadswords – the Marauder long sword. The nerf folks have different kinds of swords but they actually have a good looking broadsword (a two-handed sword, not a one handed sword) and I started collecting them. I bought a pair for M-ito and me. Then we tried them out in the apartment a few times. We didn’t break anything, amazingly, and because they are heavier than the regular size swords made by nerf, they are harder to swing around fast. So, though they are heavier, they are more difficult to use. I figured they would have  a lower accident potential. It’s still amazes me how I came up with that calculation.

I thought about using shields and contemplated garbage can lids of all sorts at Home Depot. I even thought about making them out of plywood, but that would have made things so much more complicated – and I’m no carpenter – this I know about myself. And I was trying to keep things simple. That plus I tried out the regular swords from nerf and they were much lighter than the broadswords and when M-ito and I played with them I got tagged a number of times on the hand and it hurt like the devil. I saw the potential for all kinds of face wounds and broken fingers. I figured I’d stick with the heavier and slower weapons. It would also tire them out. the swords were almost as big as the kids were. Besides shields would mean teaching them a whole different skill set – both sword and shield. Broadsword would require concentration on only the weapon as attack and defense. I knew broadsword from stage combat class. I’d choreographed a one-act play I wrote with a broadsword fight in it. My friend DB knew broadsword too and we’d practiced together enough to know the ins and outs of it. And Austino and M-ito wanted broadsword. Shields would have to wait for another day of knights that concentrated on the shield wall.

So… nerf  broadswords it was.

My friend DB is an actor and all around good sport with a twinkle in his eye when it comes to things like teaching kids about swords. So I pitched it to him at breakfast one morning just as he was getting off work and I was going to work (he works the graveyard shift at a law firm doing legal proofreading). “Want to help me teach M-ito and a few of his friends how to use a broadsword?”

“What?”

“We’ll teach ‘em the basic foot work, the cuts, the parries, give ‘em an obstacle course to run through, then have a giant melee – kids against adults. What do you think?”

He only hesitated a moment. He looked out the diner window as if imagining the mayhem. ”Sure,” he said, nodding.

“Austino’s father is going to help out also and we’ll get one more. So there’ll be four adults. We’ll be the black knights. We’ll get the kids all padded up with arm pads and bycicle helmets and then let them go at us.”

DB nodded, his smile getting bigger. He loves these kinds of things.

“And I want you and me to show them a short fight with the real swords. Then I’ll do some choreography with each of them so they get to try the real ones out. We’ll rehearse a couple of times before-hand, if you can spare the time.”

“Yeah, we’d better,” he said.

“Then you’re in?”

He nodded.

Let the Mayhem Begin!

It would be two months before we picked a day but I had my players and the beginnings of a plan.