It’s been Mario and me since Ri left for Cincy on Monday morning. The kid is too stinkin’ cute and I find myself squeezing him and kissing him every free moment I have. He begged me to come to his tee-ball practice on Monday morning and I could not resist. I rescheduled a morning meeting and went down to see him. He’s got a heck of an arm on him. He is ready for coach-pitch and he does not hesitate to to tell me the same. He kept glancing over at me to make sure I was watching him.
After work, I came home with the hopes that he would want to take a bike ride or long walk. But he just wanted to chill so I threw him into the stroller (Jon, close your ears) and we took Rocco for a walk. He brought the computer but after me wrangling him about not talking to his mom, he stopped playing on the condition that we play the animal game. And so we did. He always thinks I’m going to select a pig since it’s my favorite animal so his first question is always “is your animal pink?” So tender.
We had to step into DK Diner for a donut on our way home. Don’t you know they had two chocolate long johns left so Mario and I were in heaven. When we got home, Mario found American Ninja tryouts on tv and pleaded for me to watch them with him. And so we did. He was amazed when a girl made it through the course. It is my life’s goal to make that kid understand that girls can do anything boys can do. You’d think with as adamant as I am about that, he would understand. I’m quite sure he simply makes the comments just to irk me and Ri.
We repeated our steps on Tuesday night except DK Diner only had a vanilla long john so I had to walk away donut-less (Mario was willing “to deal with” a vanilla one). We watched more Ninja together and we did headstands. I had read a study that found that standing on your head for a minute a day was beneficial to you and I explained the study to Mario. He then timed me and made me stay in a headstand for a minute – I think he wanted me to pass out so he could stay up for the rest of the night. I made it and he congratulated me just like a trainer.
He fell asleep on my lap at 9:50 and I sent the rest of my emails while I watched his little sweet face dream. We woke up this morning and took a walk to Giant Eagle for some milk. We played a new game – guess the number. I picked a number from 1-20 and he had to guess it. He guessed my number – 16 – on the first try. He was so charged up.
“I think I can read your mind, mom!”
Well, I just couldn’t let him down so on the next try when he guessed 39 out of 1-40, I said yes even though it wasn’t the number in my head. And so it went. He would pick one less than the top number (59 if 1-60; 79 if 1-80). Finally he said “mom, you are just thinking of any number that comes right before the last number!” So I figured it was time to not fib and the next time he guessed, I told him he guessed the wrong number. But when he guessed again after saying “oh yeah, I knew that was wrong but I bet this one is right…” I had to say he was right even though he wasn’t. I’m a wimp that way. I’m probably leading him down a bad path since many articles talk about letting your kids fail but I’m sure there are worse things I could be doing with his life.
He swore he wasn’t going to get a donut at Giant Eagle but when we got there, he couldn’t resist. I made him eat some grapes before he ate his donut, which served two purposes: (1) get some vitamins in him and (2) get him filled up so I got half of his uneaten donut.
On the way back home, I asked if he missed Ri. “Sort of” he responded. It is wonderful to get alone time with each kid but I’m ready to get us all back together (and I know Mario is too notwithstanding his “sort of” response).