Less Goofy, More Sweet

GoofBoy and I were playing ball at the middle school close to our house. He likes hitting and I like pitching. Nothing is more satisfying then fooling an elementary school kid with a change-up. Well, nothing except knocking his “fastball” deep into the outfield.

Really, I want him to hit my pitches and I do my best to put them where he can hit them. This is exhausting since I also have to run down his line drives.

As we were playing a family walked by – dad, grandpa, son and dog. They stopped to watch us for a few minutes and I invited their boy to join us. As he came out to play with us it became evident that he walked and talked funny. He had something, I didn’t ask what. While he held the bat and threw awkwardly, he was really strong and hit and threw hard. More importantly, he seemed to have a great time and his presence meant I didn’t have to cover the field alone.

After a while grandpa joined in, since both GoofBoy and our new friend could hit to both sides of the field this was a welcome addition. Dad had to stay and hold the dog.

After quite a while they left. I pitched a bit more to GoofBoy and then we headed home. As we walked home we talked.

“Hey buddy,” I asked, “Is it ok that I invited that other kid to join us. You didn’t feel like I was ruining father-son time?”

“No dad it was fine. He had a good time with us.”

“And buddy, you could tell he was a little different…” I trailed off, leaving the question unasked.

“Yeah, he sure was different from me. He could hit.”

"You are one great kid," I told him, "Even if you can't hit an old man's change-up."

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I’ve been writing a lot about GoofGirl. She is really funny right now – and I just love her to death. Meanwhile, GoofBoy is growing up. Lots of his humor is more self-consciously funny and he is developing his own inside jokes with his friends. This is natural and as it should be, but it doesn’t provide for terrific blog material. But he is also decent, sweet, and kind. That’s worth a post or so.

And I love him to death too, even if he isn’t producing much blog-worthy material.

Punctuation Lesson

We had dinner at a nearby shopping center this evening. The shopping center features establishments called Bark! and Cartoon Cuts! Whenever I see the first I, well, bark and the little Goofs demands to know, "Why do you have to do that?"

"Because the sign told me to."

GoofGirl then asked why buybuyBaby didn't have an exclamation mark (I have a certain past with the place.

"Because an exclamation mark might turn the store name into a command. People would think they should go there to buy babies. Think about it," I explained and that said the store name, but with an exclamation mark, "Buy... buy baby!"

The little Goofs laughed to hear such a sport and began repeating it to each other.

I pressed my luck, "Isn't it interesting how a little mark, not even a word or letter, can change something's meaning? Punctuation is really a guide to tone, to how something should sound to your inner ear..."

"Oh Dad!" GoofBoy groaned, "Why is it you have to make everything so boring."

Horror for Kids

"Daddy, I don't want to go to the beach anymore."

"But you really like the beach, why?"

GoofGirl paused for a minute, submerged her head in her pillow for a moment and said, "I saw this video on your iPad, a lot of people were on the beach and suddenly there is a monster and there is blood and the monster is eating people."

"Sweetheart, did the monster have the mouth of a shark and the legs of an octopus?"

"Uh-huh," she said, almost crying, "How do know?"

When we saw the SyFy channel was running a movie called Sharktopus about a genetically engineered shark-octopus hybrid invented by the Navy to fight Somali pirate there was no question about what MamaGoof and I would be doing that evening. It was everything we could have hoped for, the bad acting, the unnecessary but constant presence of girls in bikinis, and Eric Roberts playing a hard-drinking mad scientist and wondering how it all came to this.

I must have grabbed the trailer on my iPad to send to friends and well...



"Oh, nina, I'm sorry, you should not have seen that. It wasn't for children, but it was just a movie it wasn't real."

"Daddy, did you watch that movie?"

"I did, with mommy. It was called Sharktopus."

"Why, it was horrible!"

"No sweetheart, it wasn't horrible. It was really dumb," I explained.

"Why did you watch a dumb movie?"

"Sometimes it is fun to watch a dumb movie and make fun of it."

"Why did they make a dumb movie?"

"I don't think they knew it would be dumb when they made it. It just came out that way." I wasn't quite ready to explain Roger Corman to her.

"So there is no such thing as sharktopus?"

"No, it's a ridiculous idea. Half-shark, half octopus - that's crazy and it definitely isn't kosher."

"OK daddy, can you come into my bed with me."

"Sure sweetheart." I got off the floor and lay down on her bed beside her. We sat together for a few minutes quietly and then she pounced on me. Looking down on me, she grinned and hissed, "Sharktopus!"

"You aren't scared anymore are you?" I asked.

"No! And if I do meet a sharktopus, I'll get him with a guillotine!"

I hate to tell her she can't just guillotine her way out of all of her problems, but we've discussed enough weighty matters for one night.

Daddy Report Card

I was really nervous when GoofGirl told me I was going to get a report card on being a Daddy. She is a serious little girl, and she took this very seriously. She wasn't just throwing something together. She understood that report cards are important, formal documents and need to travel through proper channels - i.e. a mailbox. So she made one and put it on my nightstand.



You don't just put random pieces of paper into the mailbox. They need to go into envelopes with addresses and stamps. I opened the envelope with great trepidation. My scholastic record has not been great in the past.



I did great! See, A# (which I think is even better then A+)!


I showed them to MamaGoof, proudly. She rolled her eyes, "She wants something and knows I'm not going to give it to her!"

So GoofGirl gets an A in power politics AND flattery.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Guillotine Redux

GoofGirl's obsession with guillotines has continued unabated. She discusses them frequently, had her Hebrew teacher teach her the word for guillotine in Hebrew (karat rosh - head chopper.) We even read You Wouldn't Want to Be an Aristocrat in the French Revolution (the "Wouldn't Want to Be Books are awesome). Now she plays "French Revolution" with her brother, she is always Robespierre.

When she had another playdate with Guillotine Buddy, while he was lying on the floor she grabbed a sofa cushion, held it to his neck and grinned, "Pillow guillotine!"

We are currently reading the classic Beverly Clearly Fudge series. Fudge is a precocious little guy who constantly ruins his older brother's life. It is a really good series although some parts of it are odd. In one of the novels the main character, Fudge's older brother, talks about the prospect of getting mugged in Central Park. He treats it as no big deal and talks about how neat it was for his friend because he got to go to the police station. GoofGirl was horrified, "This doesn't happen does it? Not in America?"

Growing up in NYC in the 1970s.

Anyway, when Fudge makes mischief GoofGirl gets angry. "I can't believe Fudge did that!" she will yell, "He is so stupid. I'd put him in the guillotine!"

"Now sweetheart," I tell her, "You can't solve all your problems with a guillotine."

And she built a far more in-depth Lego guillotine - with a lot more historically accurate details!

Learning to Skate on Thick Ice

GoofGirl went to an ice skating party over the weekend. It was her first time and I was worried. I knew she wanted to learn to skate, but she was also scared about it because she knows that learning involves lots of falling down. I was also worried because she gets frustrated easily and unfortunately, I cannot skate and thus cannot teach her. The hosting parents did a good job trying to teach her, but they had their own children to watch. After innumerable falls she was in tears. I tried to console her, pointing out that her friends who had skated a few times before could only hold on to the edge and walk-skate around the rink. This didn't help.

I know my daughter, and she inherited an unfortunate quality from yours truly - a quick frustration with steep learning curves. I hated to see her give up on something so soon. I even offered to put on a pair of skates and go out with her myself (hoping, vainly, that the shared experience of falling down with dad might make it better.)

Then an angel appeared. A little girl, the same height as GoofGirl but four years older (my daughter is really tall) skated up, took GoofGirl by the hand and taught her how to skate. She taught GoofGirl how to fall and get up (a major accomplishment on slippery ice.) She told GoofGirl stories about her own experiences learning to skate and falling all the time. She made many, many, many circuits around the rink with my daughter (I did too, but on the outside.)

I thanked this angel profusely. She was there with friends but chose to teach my daughter. I even offered her a modest gift. She waved away my bills, saying, with surprising maturity, "I appreciate the gesture, but no thank you."

Soon GoofGirl was making circuits around the rink on her own. She fell down some, but got back up. She only held onto the wall briefly. She took a break for the birthday cake with tremendous reluctance. As she sat with her friends eating, she kept saying to me, "I just want to go back out and skate!"

And she did, around and around. Faster and stronger each time. Rather then try to follow her on the outside, I stood in a few spots to video and photograph this magic moment (and text it on to MotherGoof!) The angel skated by, waved to me, and pointed proudly to her student on the other side of the rink. I smiled and gave a big thumbs up.

My daughter has a new hobby, an expensive and inconvenient hobby.

But I couldn't be happier or more proud.