I clicked on my Bloglines page this morning and found 771 unread posts waiting for me. In fact, just about the only site that wasn't staring imperiously at me with its bold, impatient typeface was my own. So much has happened to the men and women I read over the past week; lives have come and gone, and I'm feeling a bit of a shitheel for not having had the time to e-mail and convey my congratulations, and my condolences.
Now that the afternoons are longer, the boys and I have been braving Weather Whiplash (It's 50 degrees! It's 90 degrees! It's fucking 50 degrees again!) and spending lots of time at the park. I've been workshopping for the 10 weeks of 2-on-1 childcare that will start in the middle of June, honing my skills at accommodating two willful minds whose wants rarely intersect. The one thing they do agree on is that they each must have All Daddy, All The Time. Which frankly is a pretty wonderful predicament.
The game of the moment is baseball, and the boys and I spend lots of time throwing and catching and building up eye-hand coordination. Robert isn't all that good at catching yet, so he's compensated by creating a game called Catch-Touch which (oh! sweet irony!) devalues catching altogether. Person 1 throws the ball, and if Person 2 catches it Person 1 can 1) throw his mitt as high in the air as possible, 2) run someplace over there somewhere, and 3) run back to where he was originally standing. If Person 1 gets back "home" without being tagged, he scores a run.
The rules tend to evolve faster than I can comprehend them. For example, I used to be able to tag Robert anywhere. Then it was only below the waist. Then it was only below his knees, and now it's a patch of skin about an inch in diameter on his upper right ankle. Oh--and I have to throw the ball from farther than 20 feet. The upshot of all this is:
- If he doesn't catch the ball, I can't score any runs.
- If I catch the ball, I have to hit a running target 20 feet away. And it's not like I can put any speed on the throw, because other park revelers might think ill of a daddy whipping a tennis ball at his kid.
- If I don't catch the ball, I have to go chase it down. And he runs anyway.
When it's time to go home, he's usually up by around 20 runs. Needless to say, I'm feeling a lot like the Washington Generals.
I'm also feeling more fit, though. And that's a good thing, because in the next few weeks I will 1) attend my 20th college reunion and 2) turn 500 months old. This latter milestone makes me really happy for some reason--maybe because the last month has been so busy and fun and revelatory, and I want the next 500 to follow the pattern. I'm not sure who'll be around to help me celebrate, or what we're all going to do, but there will definitely be some sort of whip-around. Got any ideas?
