Games

Jack and I played football and baseball outside the last two days. It's been cold, but not icy, and we get outdoors when we can.

Jack likes watching football more, and at present he likes tossing the football around more, too. He says, and I can understand, that with baseball he wants to bat, which we can't really do in our yard (decent sized, but not big enough to really hit it). In any case, we spent 15 minutes throwing the baseball, which is relaxing and fun, especially watching how he has improved since last year. He's been doing a weekly Winter Clinic, and he's 8 instead of 7, so he's bigger, stronger, better.

But then we switched to football, and it's as different as the two are on TV. He runs almost non-stop, naarating plays (the zig-zag, the flea-flicker, etc.), then sprinting deep. He dives for almost everything, and catches a lot of them now. Much more so than he used to, just a few months ago. It will be interesting to see him playing baseball this year.

I also introduced him to sudoku puzzles yesterday, or he introduced them to us. He opened up the paper, we did the jumble, took a halfhearted stab at the Crossword, were basically mystified by the Cryptoquote -- how on Earth do people do these things? Then did the Sudoku, successfully, much to his satisfaction. He left a note next to my bed at night, which said, Don't read until tomorrow morning. I read it this morning: "Good morning Dad. Let's get the paper and do Sudoku! From Jack." And then a P.S. You are the best Dad ever. Uh but I don't want to brag. Well maybe a little.

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Kate and I played the Memory game today, which I think used to be called "concentration" (for you old folks out there). I will need to work with her a little on being a good sport, because not only did she totally kick my butt all over the place, but she laughed like Woody Woodpecker while doing it.

At each wrong guess on my part, I said, "Oh good grief," and she collapsed in laughter all over again.

I am not sure which one of us had more fun.