My son likes to listen to comedians and has a few on his list he's allowed to listen to because they don't use bad language typically and their content doesn't include adult topics my son wouldn't understand. For the past two days, he's been saying, "Brian Regan, Brian Regan!" when we got in the car, only to be told it wasn't a good time to listen to comedy as we wanted to do something called, "talking to each other".
Today, after a long and late lunch and then a visit to the children's museum where we stayed until they closed and we were all ready for some quiet time once we got in the car. My son had repeated his request for Brian Regan to be played and since the car is pretty good about playing anything you ask for, we queued up some Brian Regan tracks.
The first one reminded me of my father. Or rather reminded me of something about my father. Brian was talking about sports and said Raquetball was the only sport where you could be looking at the ball while having it hit you in the back of the head at the same time. I never played racquetball, but my father did for many years and I went a few times to watch him. You can see into the courts from the back and I can vouch for that ball speed comment by Brian Regan. The ball moved so fast sometimes I couldn't follow it.
My father got a lot of his exercise for years playing racquetball. He was good, no very good at the sport. He played using logic and strategy as opposed to force and skill alone and in so doing, won quite a lot. My mother said many a time that he'd come home and upon asking him how he did, he'd say, "I beat a young stud today."
That was my dad, beating young studs well into his grey hair years. I'm sure it irritated some of them. I'm betting, knowing my father, he'd be back the following week for a rematch if they'd been willing to risk a second defeat.
The Big Boy Update: My son is SO physical. He wants to be in your face about lots of things. This kind of behavior would be perfectly acceptable if he had a male, sighted sibling I would bet at least a hundred dollars on with confidence. His sister, however, is startled by his unexpected and sudden bursts of sound and physical contact—and she resents it, getting upset and angry. He gets in trouble for it, even though he's just being himself. I don't mean to be sexist at all by the above, I've talked to other parents and they agree if they have sons, saying he'd fit right in in their house. I even asked my son about it and he told me, "I get along with the boys on the street, they do the same thing." I hate for him that he's got a sister dealing with the trauma of vision loss and he's the one that has to adapt his personality to match her needs.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Sydney has been here since Thursday night and since that time she and my daughter have been better than best friends. They want to do everything together and they want to do the same thing as the other one, including having the same number of meatballs. Sydney leaves tomorrow, and we're all going to be sad to have her and her parents head back home. It's been such a nice visit. My daughter is going to be the saddest, it's been like having a sister. She is going to miss Sydney very much.
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