Gigaaa-aaaantor

We’re in the car. Travelling from Target to home. Mom-ita is driving.

“Dad-dito,” M-ito asks from the back seat.

“Yes.”

“Back in your time, when you were a kid –”

“Way back in my time?”

“Yes, way back then – what TV shows did you watch? I mean what cartoons were on way back then.”

“Well, way back then, we used to watch cartoons just like you did but the big day to watch was Saturday when we watched cartoons all morning. There wasn’t cable so we just had channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 13.”

“That was it?”

“That was it.”

“Well, what did you watch?”

“My favorite shows were The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Speed Racer, Gigantor, Whacky Racers, and Scooby Doo.”

“I like those too. What’s Gigantor?”

“Giant robot and a boy. Theme song is Gigaaaaaantor. Gigaaaaa-aaantor. And I forget the rest. It’s a cool song.”

“Yeah.”

“We watched the Banana Splits too and live action shows like Batman,”

“Superman,” Mom-ita added.

” – and Wonder Woman.”

“Yeah.”

“Any reason you wanted to know?”

“No. Just asking.”

Brother Spike

Mom-ita found a piece of paper she’d used to write things down on that M-ito has said to us. This is from when he was three years old.

M-ito – “If I have a brother or sister what will their names be?”

Mom-ita – “If we have another child and it’s a girl we’ll name her Lil-ita after my grandmother, just as you were named M-ito after your father’s grandfather.”

M-ito – “If we have a boy can I name him?”

Mom-ita – “What would you name him?”

M-ito – “Spike.”

It’s five years later and we are past being able to have a second child. It is an ache in our hearts that won’t fully go away.

We got a dog in July. It fell into our laps. It had been returned by the original adopting family to a trainer that we know who called us and offered him to us for adoption. He was a little 15 pound, 8 months old hypoallergenic Havanese, and he was already named – Spike.

Outsane

Mom-ita to M-ito after he has stopped in the middle of tying his sneakers on the way out for the tenth time in five minutes. “You drive me insane, you know that?”

“No, Mom-ita,” M-ito counters. “I drive you outsane.”

DS i XL Grenade

Sometimes you just have to jump on the grenade. If you’ve been reading along with this blog you know my opinion of the DS and it’s not very high. I like people games instead of computer games. It’s not that I dislike computer games – I love them – but not to the extent that kids play them today. There is a disconnect occurring between children today and other children. They’re playing games too much by themselves and with a computer and not interacting with others. We’re social animals and this can’t be good for the upcoming generation. So that’s the set-up.

The camera zooms in on my face. It’s Sunday morning and it’s my birthday. No wait. Rewind. Go back to Saturday afternoon. The day before. I’m home after yoga class (a good day with 19 people and good pranic energy in the room). Mom-ita and M-ito are out shopping for various things including my birthday gift. The phone rings. It’s Mom-ita.

“M-ito has a gift all picked out for you,” she says cagily.

“Okay… ” I say, waiting for what sounds like is coming after. I’m picturing some Warhammer figures (a new game we’re playing together at a shop in Manhattan), or something yoga-like, maybe a cool stuffed animal that he will get soon after he gives it to me.

“It’s a DS,” she says quietly and waits.

“A what?” I ask.

“A DS i XL. He says you’ve always wanted one and that if you get one – you and he can play the game together at the same time.” She waits again. “He said you need the DS i XL version because it’s a bigger screen and you can’t see the small screen very well.” I think she’s trying to hold back laughter now but I can’t tell.”

I rack my brain. Have I ever told him I wanted a DS? Have I ever told him how much that would mean to me? If I did, and it’s possible, it was only to make him feel better because I would never in my life think that I would get one without someone forcing me to play with a gun to my head. Perhaps I have overstated that a little.  I took a deep breath and exhaled. We have only M-ito. “Of course,” I said. ”That’s very sweet. I’ll take the XL and I’ll jump on the grenade. It’s my turn. You’ve been playing Harry Potter on the Wii all summer (and loving it I should say because Mom-ita loves to play the Lego games) so it’s my turn.”

Now she laughs. “This is your iPad, you know,” she says when she gets her breath back.

“Thanks,” I say. An iPad. Oh that hurts. She did that on purpose.

M-ito couldn’t wait so I opened my gift that night.

Fast forward to the next morning, October 3, birthday morning.

I sleep until almost 7:30am and it’s wonderful. The bed is so warm beneath the comforter. The wind is blowing outside and making the shades move back and forth. M-ito is staring at me from a few inches away. “Happy birthday,” he says, eyes full of mischief. “Let’s play your DS.”

And with a hug, a heartfelt sigh, and a smile, I say, “Yes. Let’s play with my DS. I’ll need your help setting it up.”

Forty-nine  years on this planet and still counting.

Birds and Bees… Girls and Boys

We’re sitting down for dinner. Mom-ita made burritos and we’re all digging in. M-ito and I have finally cleaned off the dining room table so we can eat at it (it’s been months that it’s been covered with models and figures and games and the remains of summer homework). M-ito had his first day of 3rd grade today and he said it went well. He’s actually answering questions about what happened with extended narratives rather than the one word answers we’d hit bottom with back in May and June. We got around to the subject of girls.

I asked him, “How do you know if a girl likes a boy in your grade?”

M-ito replied, “If they chase you.”

Little Green Nubs

“Why do women shave their underarms down to little green nubs?” M-ito asks while we’re walking Spike-ito. When he asks the question he puts his thumb and index finger together and scrunches up his face.

“The simple answer is fashion. In other countries women don’t shave their armpits but here in the US most women do. But let’s see what Mom-ita says,” I reply.

“But why do they have little nubs green under there?”

“That’s probably from deodorant.”

“But why do they do that?”

“People use deodorant so they don’t have body odor.”

“but what if you smell anyway, even with deodorant?”

“Let’s see what Mom-ita says,” I counter.

Twenty minutes later we’re back in the apartment and M-ito asks Mom-ita the same question.

“Peer pressure,” she says.

“Like when all of your friends tell you to do something and you don’t really want to do it but you do it anyway?” I add in.

“Oh,” M-ito says.

There’s so much more to cover, like misogyny, male privilege, a discussion of who determines what is feminine, what is more woman-like, and what is beautiful (mostly men). But for now… fashion and peer pressure covers it all.

When I Was Little…

“When I was little,” M-ito begins, which always gives me a chuckle, ” I used to think you’d go to first grade when you were one, second grade when you were two, third grade when you were three…” At this point I have to admit I got the sequence and checked out for a moment – started to think about work and yoga classes – then checked back in a few moments later. “… tenth grade when you were ten. Eleventh grade when you were eleven. Twelfth grade when you were twelve.” M-ito laughs a little with me as if to say, Can you believe I used to think that? Then he says, “Can you believe I thought that?”

I shrug. “Crazy isn’t it?”

Snack Bar Chatter

Baseball Camp Snack Bar Break:

“Can I get candy?” – M-ito

“No.” – me

“Can I get a blowpop?” – M-to

“No.” – me

“Can I get popcorn?” – M-ito

“No.” – me

“What can I get?” – M-ito

“Gatorade and an italian ice.” – me

“Can I have an extra dollar?” – M-ito

Baseball Dialog

I’m on the phone. Mom-ita is describing our son playing ball.

“You have to see this. He’s at second base and J-ito (one of his friends) is behind him in right field. They’re throwing their gloves to each other. The boy at shortstop has just yelled at them to pay attention because the batter is up.”

M-ito on his friend playing right field. “I told him he had to move out. He was too close to me at second base. He said he was in the right field. ‘The grass is the outfield and I’m on the grass,’ he said. But he was just on the edge. He needed to move out!”

I’m watching M-ito play left field. He’s got his glove in his mouth and he’s chewing on the edge. He stays that way through three batters. A butterfly passes by and his gaze wanders towards it. He follows it with his eyes while another batter comes and goes.

Batter Up!

Second week of sports camp – baseball is in and lacrosse is out. I watched the lacrosse players, much fewer this week, maybe two-thirds of the number they had the week before, maybe half. They’re in one group and not two anymore but they still have three coaches.

On the other side of the field, where M-ito, Momita and I went was filled with kids from 6 years old to 14. There were four age groups and M-ito was with two friends and about 18 other 8-year olds. He had three coaches. They warmed up. The coaches coached and kept discipline. One kid pushed another and the head coach for the group pulled him aside and, within my hearing (I had to listen carefully) told the kid the two rules of play. 1) Don’t push anyone ever again. 2) If a kids calls you a name you come to him (the coach) and he’ll take care of it. Then the head coach pulled the other kid aside and told him the same thing. There were no more problems the whole day. They broke up into three groups, one with each coach and they did 8 minute drills moving from one station to the next every 8 minutes. They learned how to throw a ball, how to pick off a runner, how to do a “4″ slide, and then went to the batting cage for practice hitting. It looked like so much fun I wanted to join in. After another cycle of drills and the snack station where nutritious snacks like seventeen kinds of candy and popcorn in addition to Gatorade and ices were served – they played a game for the last hour putting all that they learned into practice. The coaches said, “good try” to every kid who made a mistake and there was a ton of individual attention.

Every morning I packed a cooler for M-ito with ice, water, cut oranges, and a snack. By the end of the week both of his friends were sending their water bottles home with the cooler and I had to put extra money in the side pocket for them too. Cold water and ice was at a premium.

It was like night and day compared to the lacrosse.

Don’t get me wrong there were some low points.

• The hardest part was watching M-ito strike out each time he was up at bat. I know he hit the ball the day before but it was hard to watch him walk off with his head down. The coaches all gave him “good trys” and I have to say he did a good job of shaking it off.
• On the last day a kid on the other team threw his helmet onto the ground after striking out every time also and the coaches only told him to stop it one time (I thinnk they didn’t see the other times – perhaps because of the heat haze). I would have benched him (even if that would have left them with only 6 players).
• A really good player on M-ito’s team kept playing M-it’s position for him. M-ito was playing third and the boy was at second. He kept wandering the field because he was good and he knew where to go – but this didn’t help M-ito to learn what to do or get him the ball. The coaches missed that.
• I’m ashamed to say this but it’s true. The same good player is a great hitter who had a home run and a double and single. The last time he got up he struck out and the other team cheered. The boy laughed it off – his ego strong enough to survive with ease. He took it as a compliment. Me, I gave him a silent cheer. I was glad he struck out. I told M-ito later, “You see, even the kid who was really good – he struck out too at the end!” It was all I could come up with.

M-ito gave it a 10 – both the coaches and the playing.

I watched him play most of the first morning and all of the fourth and last.

His team won the last game on the last day – billed as the world series of the games and like the kid he is, he jumped up and down with the rest of his teammates, happy to have been a part of the game and winning regardless of how big or small a part he’d played.

Final outcome – I didn’t have to coach. I just watched.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I took out my camera and took some pictures. What else is a Dad-dito to do?

M-ito said he wants to play on both a lacrosse and baseball team. But… he’s had enough of sport camp for a while and is glad to be done for the summer. We think he lost five pounds sweating in the polyester baseball pants. He also has a wicked tan from all that time in the sun, even with sunscreen. When he got home he picked up the first of the Harry Potter books and started to read.