Zoomboy is playing soccer.
“How is he doing?” Mate asks, and I tell him. It’s not pretty.
“He runs like an epileptic giraffe in cement shoes,” I tell him apologetically.
“That’s your fault.” (My family’s complete lack of coordination is universally acknowledged. When my father dances, lives are at stake.)
“I know,” I tell him.
“What else?”
“He can’t focus. I spent a couple of practices giving him a verbal redirect, but the coach would rather we not yell at them on the field.”
“What were you yelling?”
“‘Dammit, Zoomboy, the ball is over there!”‘
“Good coach.”
“I am aware.”
Mate accepts this. “So what now?”
“What do you mean what now?”
“How did he do tonight?”
I look at Zoomboy, who is currently crouched in the middle of the field, quite literally picking daisies. “Peachy, honey. He’s doing swell.”
“Does he do that all practice?”
“No, actually. When they were doing laps around the track, he was running. He was running with his hands in the air about chest level, but he was running.”
Mate is sincerely puzzled. “Why was he running with his hands up at his chest?”
I mimed the position. “He was driving.”
“Driving?”
“Driving. And he was so busy driving that all those ubercompetetive little boys who actually want to play soccer dusted him. I said, ‘Zoomboy, where’d your team go?’ He was so puzzled he stopped hs ‘car’, backed it up, turned it around, backed it up, went forward again, looked around and realized he couldn’t find them. So he put his car in idle and hung his elbow out the window until they all caught up to him again.”
“He mimed all this?” Mate asked numbly.
“He did indeed.”
“Peachy.”
“Oh look!” said one of the other team mom’s next to us. She thinks this is so cute. “He’s doing a little dance for you!”
“Look mom!” called Zoomboy from the field. “It’s the pee-pee dance! I don’t have to go pee-pee, but I’ll do the dance for you!”
The dance came complete with held crotch and everything.
Mate and I watch him without a single word between us.
“That’s awesome,” he said at last.
“That’s our boy.”
He is indeed. But I still think it’s a sign that we’d better plan for our retirement now.
