Backyard Spring Training

I needed to know whether a pair of cleats that Charlie used to wear would fit Teddy for the impending start of his organized baseball career.  He starts coach pitch baseball in a few weeks.  We've largely enjoyed the luxury of hand-me-downs from our older August-birthday-boy fitting our younger August-birthday-boy.  Teddy's feet, though seem a little bigger than Charlie's at the same age.  In fact, he falls right between two pairs of Charlie's cleats.  Anyway, I had him try on the larger ones to see if they would fit.  The boys went out with gloves and a tennis ball and did some impromptu fielding drills.  The video summarizes the action and contains a special soundtrack.

The Comics

My boys read the comics at breakfast every morning.  I read them before going to sleep at night.  I'm happy that my boys interact with a physical newspaper for now.  They'll be able to tell my great grandchildren about the medium.

I should have suspected that our favorite comics differ from each other, but until I asked Charlie his top 5, I had no idea.  We have no overlaps at all.  I know that young children like Garfield, and I'm glad that current young children still connect with the characters Charles Schultz created for so long.  But Drabble?  Seriously?

Charlie's Top 5 (in no particular order)

Beetle Bailey

Big Nate

Drabble

Classic Peanuts

Garfield

My Top 5 (again, no particular order)

Non Sequitur

Bizarro

Dilbert

Doonesbury

Tundra

Wordless (after a fashion): Smart Kid?

Sunday Haiku: Nerf shedding

MacArthur genius

grant for inventing Nerf balls

that don't shed.  Vacuum!

Monday Chart: It's OK, Dad. I'll Take Care of It.

Thoughtful neighbors plus creative boys plus awesome babysitter =

Starship Filebox

Christmas Plane

\When some neighbors/church friends bought a big file cabinet, they found themselves with a box they thought had lots of potential.  They called us and delivered it to our house!  We talked to the boys and their marvy babysitter for the evening about what the box could become, and they saw raw material for a space ship.

We came home to find this winged vehicle that they'd created with packing tape, duct tape, markers, a utility knife (babysitter only!) and a heavy plastic bag that came in the box.  Some of the windows are actually covered with plastic.  There's a top hatch that this picture doesn't show very well.  The back end of the ship has little rocket boosters cut in it.  It has magic marker buttons for slow drive, fast drive and hyper speed.  Such a cool way to spend their time! 

Our boys had been primed to turn the blank canvas of a box into something fun by their creative and capable uncle Steven.  He (amazingly quickly) converted a box we'd used to transport Christmas presents to the grandparents' house into this little plane.  The boys have continued to play with it for the past two months, occasionally adding more markings, decorations or cardboard bits.  The wrapping paper roll on the back is the latest addition.

Getting meta: why do I blog?

From a September 2011 Atlantic article about V.S. Naipaul by Joseph O'Neill, a possible explanation for why I blog:
 

"A deep formal rationale for going to the enormous trouble of committing words to paper over time is to find respite from the intellectually and morally chaotic buffoon who goes through the world minute by minute, and bring into being that better, more coherent entity known as the author."


Yes, I'm very behind in reading my magazines.  I've just finished last September's Atlantic.  But isn't that a fascinating explanation for why people write?  And doesn't it explain why it can be disappointing to meet a favorite author in person?  We want them to be as superhuman as the artifacts they produce would suggest they are.

Sometimes I worry that my blog only covers the high, funny and interesting parts of my parenting life.  And even with those limitations, I think I end too many posts on an ambiguously positive note.  Perhaps I write in order to believe that much more strongly in my own competence as a parent?

At any rate, I want to go look up some of Joseph O'Neill's writing.