Big Daddy Paul

People have kids for many reasons. Some people have kids because they feel a natural desire to reproduce, or need extra hands to pick crops in the fields. Others don’t really want kids, but receive a little bundle of joy as the reminder of a drunken hookup nine long months ago. Still others want to repopulate the earth with kids bearing their political affiliation and/or genetic markers. Not me.

I wanted to have a kid so I could play soccer. I am too old and too fat to go out and join a soccer league by myself, so I figured the easiest way for me to get back into the sport I played all throughout my childhood was to get Amy pregnant, somehow make it through the newborn and toddler phases, and then get to the point where the kid was old enough to want to run around on a soccer field with me. Sure, it’s not the easiest route to play “the beautiful game,” but then again, it’s no worse than having a healthy brood of kids for the sole purpose to revive the movement to reestablish nacho bars in school cafeterias.

Our neighbors got it right, they brought a nacho machine to a block party!

(I grew up on them, why can’t everyone else?!)

At the park today, Malcolm and I started up a game of soccer with some other kids and a fellow stay at home dad. I felt a certain sense of jubilation as we ran around pretending to be world cup stars and watching with pride as the kids passed the ball to each other and celebrated after scoring goals against us. I don’t really care whether Malcolm was any good (he wasn’t) but just the the fact that he was out there and having fun with me made me smile.  All in all, not a bad day at the park, I burned some calories, scored a few goals, and fulfilled a lifelong dream. Now, bring on the nacho bar petition!

I took Malcolm to his last soccer practice last week.  The coach never really came to understand how a three year old child’s mind works and had the enthusiasm of a hungover cop.  During the final practice, he had the kids try and scrimmage again, and when it didn’t work and he got tired of yelling at the kids, he gave up.  That’s right, after a grand total of ten minutes of “practice” time, he told the kids it was over, and then took them to the rec center and gave them ice cream bars.  They played foosball in the rec center after wolfing down the ice cream, and it was the most excitement the kids showed toward soccer for the entire summer. 

With his summer now winding down, I can reflect on what we have done and what the future holds.  This will forever be the summer that Malcolm got into baseball. We go to the park almost every day and he really enjoys playing the game.  He has even started to hit from both sides of the plate!  While I am a little sad that he won’t be the left handed middle reliever that every baseball minded dad wants out of his kid, at least I have the prospect of a switch hitting middle infielder.  Go Malkie! I don’t care if he is ever good at baseball, but the fact that he is excited by playing ball with me is enough (for now!).

Malcolm returns to preschool this week, and I couldn’t be more excited.  I now will get a break for four and a half hours a day. I could lie and say that it will probably mean that I can blog, exercise or bathe more regularly, but the reality of it all is that I will probably just use the time to research my fantasy football draft.  Sue me.

P.S. I am quite aware that the dad (or child abductor) pictured to the left has two kids, and we have but the one. This picture is supposed to be a metaphor for the winding down of our summer lives together.  Consider the second child to be a metaphor for just how much I like to each nachos.  Not the best metaphor you will ever see, but really, metaphors are a pretty lame rhetorical device, don’t ya think?

It finally happened.  The three and four year olds at Malcolm’s tot soccer class staged a coup today and let their coach know, in no uncertain terms, that they would no longer be taking any instruction.  I am no fan of Malcolm’s soccer coach, as many of you know, so I have never been more proud of a group of kids.

The day started with the coach setting up a field about the length of a regulation soccer field.  A regulation soccer field to a 3 year old seems like about 2 miles long.  The coach had them doing some silly drills, and by the time the kids got halfway down the field, they forgot, Memento style, what they were doing and started to wander off.  This made the coach mad, and he started to yell.   “Sahm, come back here, what are you doing.  Maggie, where are you going?  Malcolm take the cones out of your shorts!”  Coach decided he needed a helper, and recruited an 80 year old grandmother to keep the kids in line.  This pissed me off even more. I had previously offered to help the coach out, and when he actually needs help motivating the kids and keeping them in line he chooses a mumbling, unathletic grandma?  At least I don’t mumble.

Coach eventually tired of the drill and decided the kids were ready  to start playing a game.  He separated them into teams and seemed irked that they didn’t grasp the team game, opting instead to chase the ball around regardless of who was on which team.  He started to yell at the kids, “Don’t you guys know that you are teams and need to score goals?”  The kids stopped and looked at him like his head was made of peanut butter.  When they resumed their game of chase, the coach got even madder, threatening to cut the session off early.  This made all the parents laugh, because the kids then gathered together, on the opposite side of the field as the coach, and seemed to be plotting a coup.  When the meeting didn’t break, coach lost it.  He continued to yell at the kids, “I need you guys to swear that you are going to start playing soccer for real or not just run around and kick the ball.  If you can’t I am gonna make you sit down and do nothing.”  At this point, the kids started the mutiny and half of them sat down.  He told the kids to stand up, and when they didn’t, he told the rest of the kids to sit down too.  The rest of the parents laughed as the coach fell apart and the kids started to wander off, not sure of whether they should be sitting or standing, playing soccer or running around kicking the ball.

Afterwards, I offered the coach some insights into the mind of a three year old.  Coach didn’t seem too interested in my ideas for improving the practices, instead complaining that the “kids just don’t listen to me!”  Dude, welcome to my world.