So here I sit at 11:07 pm because I cannot sleep. I have an "Interview and Interrogation" class starting tomorrow and I should be asleep, but, here I sit. Yes, it is work related, and no, it is not to get new techniques to use on my children to find out what one of them did to the other or who ate the last Pop-Tart. Although, there may be something in there worth trying I suppose.
Anyway, when I cannot sleep I write stories about my adventures in being a father to three girls and my attempts to maintain some sanity in the estrogen-filled, testosterone killing house. If you have read any of the other stories, you know why I say "testosterone killing." My only male companions are Major and the fish whose name I cannot remember. But he is male, so he is my friend.
As Riley Grace gets older her vocabulary expands. It expands exponentially every day, I might add. Sometimes there are words that are so unintelligible I am left agape, and other times she repeats what I tell her to say just so I can get a laugh and a confused look from her mother.
Now, to the point. Our house is full of Texas Rangers fans. At one time Cooper was in love with David Murphy. Hannah is an Ian Kinsler fan and proudly wore her "Kinsler" shirt to a game recently in San Francisco against the Giants. Riley Grace has yet to chose a favorite, although I think she pays more attention when Nelson Cruz is at bat.
So, during a game recently Riley Grace learned a new word. No, not a profanity. Following a Nelson Cruz moonshot homerun she heard me yell, "Boomstick!" Any Rangers fans know what that means. I think she saw my happiness as she looked at me, at the television, and back at me. She looked puzzled, ever so momentarily, as she was obviously working out in her two year old brain how to formulate the word and to reconcile what she had just observed. Then, without prompting by her proud father, she enthusiastically blurts out in her best toddler-speak, "BOOMSTICK!" Okay, so maybe it wasn't that exactly, but it was close enough.
To make her father even more proud, she is trying to display the "claw" and "antler" when appropriate. She happily mimicked me when I showed the antlers last night after Andrus advanced two bases after a botched throw to first. I know, insane. I looked over and she had learned to put her hands up, and thumbs against her head to make two antlers. Greatness.
She actually does enjoy watching baseball with me. As I sat in the floor leaning up against the couch, she toddled over and climbed onto my lap to watch the game while gnawing on her pacifier right in my ear. I could overlook that minor annoyance because she was too cute when she looked me in the eye and said, "Cuddle me."
So just when I think they are trying my last iota of patience, yanking on my last nerve, or making yet another hair on my head gray, one of them comes to "Daddy rescue" and brings a tear to my eye. It is truly emotional when Riley Grace lets out a "Boomstick" while cuddling with me. I just hope she doesn't pick up a no-no word and proudly announce it to a room full of people while her shocked, and mortified, mother and father stand by in embarrassment.
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