Apologies to Derek Jeter

While Ian was eating his waffles this morning (no, we don't eat anything else), I figured I'd check in with him about spring sports.

"Ian, do you want to play baseball this spring or soccer?"

"Huh?" Ian looks at me with the corner of a bite of waffle sticking out of his mouth.

"Baseball or soccer? Which do you want to play?"

"Soccer!" He's sitting up on his knees to eat, a commanding presence over the Mickey Mouse plate, waving a Lightning McQueen fork.

"Are you sure? Papa and I took you a few years ago and you hated it. Remember?"

"Huh?" Ian freezes while poking around for the next bite, as if he just realized I'm talking to him. Sometimes he really reminds me of that fish in "Finding Nemo", the one who had a short-term memory problem.

"Remember? You hated it?"

"No, I want to play soccer. They have teams in soccer. I like teams."

"Well they have teams in baseball, too."

"Yeah, but I don't want to be a Yankee," he says, chewing a wad of waffle from inside his cheek, tobacco-like.

But whew. Looks like we dodged a bullet on that Yankee thing.

"I want to be the other thing. The soccer thing."

Real Madrid? Man United? His Papa, hailing from Europe, will be so proud.

And in case I needed a reminder, he adds this bit:

"And Mom? I'm gonna WIN!!!!!! WHOOOOOPEEEE!!!" and he pumps his fist like our friend Rafa Nadal.

Looks like the next conversation needs to be about how you get thrown out of the game if you don't have a sportsman-like attitude. Or maybe I'll let the coach tackle that one.

Frightful Outside (and In)

We had a charming little blizzard here in Hoboken, New Jersey this morning. Wet, fat flakes that stuck to everything. It was beautiful. When the boys saw it out the window, I could barely get them dressed from all the jumping up and down and sticking their faces to the window. And then, the inevitable questions:

"Can we go outside and play?!" and "We want to build a snowman! Can we? Can we?"

Unfortunately for them, I'm sort of a taskmaster. A little snow wasn't going to mess up my schedule. I had a meeting to get to 30 minutes away, I had my coffee mug in hand, and my big fat answer to all that was "NO!"

You should have seen their reaction in our living room. Total anarchy. Stuff about we don't want to go to school!!! and we don't want to go in the car, we want to walk!! and we don't want to go with you, we want Papa!! (given the aforementioned Oedipus issue, I know it's serious when they call for Papa).

But I've learned to tune out almost everything. They could be crying about two sets of broken legs and I'm not sure I'd notice until an hour after they started moaning. It's probably not in their best interest, but it's one of my last remaining survival skills and I've spent years honing it. I'm not giving it up now.

So I just shoveled them into the elevator, not unlike a stubborn snowbank on a driveway, and pressed "1". To the garage, more shoveling. Into the car, more shoveling.

Then finally, they were restrained in the backseat like two mental patients and I could enjoy my coffee.

As we pulled out of the driveway and onto the street, Julian was suddenly deathly quiet (that's usually when I start paying attention).

"Are you OK, Jul?" I ask.

"Yeah. I just want to hear the snow," he says.

"But snow doesn't make noise when it's falling."

"Yes, Mom, it do. It do make noise."

I listened at the next stop sign when the engine was quiet. And you know what? It do.

"Job WANTED"

After we dropped Ian off at his preschool and were on the way to Jersey City, Julian spotted this on the sidewalk: A man in a dark suit and tie, crisp pressed white shirt and shined shoes was standing near the stoplight. He was wearing a sandwich board on his chest on which he had carefully printed the words, in orange, "Job WANTED".

"What's that man?" asked Julian.

"Well, Juli, he's just standing there, waiting for someone," I sort of lied.

"What are those letters he has?"

"Um, those letters are because he wants to tell people something."

"What he wants to tell people?"

How do you explain to a 3-year-old about having a job, and then losing that job, and then trying desperately to get another one? How desperate must things have gotten for this guy that he's resorted to a blitzkrieg, an untargeted shout-out to all the passersby on their way from Jersey, into the PATH train, and on to their own jobs in Manhattan. But I couldn't figure out a non-anxiety-producing way to explain the whole this-guy-has-no-job-and-is-probably-on-his-last-dime situation of the sandwich board. So I did what most of us do in those situations (at least I hope most of us do, not just me). I wimped out and completely made something up.

"He wants to tell people about a cool new toy."

But I should have known better than to go that route.

"A toy? But I want that toy! Mommy, I WANT IT!!"

I dug myself in deeper. "Well, I don't know where to buy it."

"Mommy, but I WANT it. Mommy, buy it!!"

Juli has a short fuse. When something distresses him, he goes off the deep end pretty fast. Soon, he's crying and thrashing about wanting a toy that doesn't exist, based on my lie. I deserve this, I'm thinking.

"OK, Jul, we'll find it." Where I was going with this lie I had no idea, but he starts to calm down.

We drive on and I think about the sandwich board guy. I wish I ran a company so I could give him a job. Anybody who had decided they could stand in broad daylight and advertise to strangers that they were out of a job, dressed in a suit and ready to work, is obviously somebody who doesn't give up. Ever. That would be a good person to hire. I hope somebody walking past him to their job in Manhattan would be thinking the same thing. I hope I don't see him there tomorrow, unless it's because he's commuting. Good luck to him.