Skurdy and Co.

I will be the first to admit that I have never been accused of being a mental giant, and rightfully so. Oh sure, I can quote obscure Denver Bronco facts from as far back as 1972, quote every line from the movie A Christmas Story, store tons of useless facts just so I might be able to call BS on someone at a party, and remember every humiliating event from my friends and family's lives and bring them up when there is a lull in the conversation but I don't think Mensa will be knocking down my door anytime soon. (Apparently a 28 on the ACT in 1986 doesn't assure you spot next to Stephen Hawking.)

The reason I bring up this flaw of mine is I wasn't told that I would need to become an expert in child psychology when I became a father. I was pretty sure all you had to do was tell them what to do and everything would run smoothly. Further proof of my intellectual inadequacy.( I just had to look up how to spell inadequacy.) Are you getting the point? My three year old is administering a crash course in Psych 101, 201, 301 every day. While his brothers are at school each day and coming home with wild and far out stories of the trials and tribulations of elementary school, the 3 year old has entered into his own social world. He does interact with other kids and has started to recount some of their sordid experiences.

He first mentioned his friend "Megan" to me. I of course had no idea who Megan was but I encouraged him as he told story after story about how he and Megan play together, what Megan's mom let's her do, and all the other things assorted with best friends. I thought it was very telling that he had a girl for his best friend, of course I perceived this as him being a Don Juan already. Finally I asked my wife who this Megan was and she just looked at me with that look like "Hey you just missed the short bus" and told me Megan was imaginary. What? Is that normal? Apparently it is so I had to take some time and digest this info. Pretty soon He started talking about Megan's cat "Jealous". Now this coincides with his older brothers starting to attend classmates birthday parties and having even more things to tell us when they get home. I don't think the cats name is a coincidence, but hey, I'm still learning here, I don't want to read to much into it.

After a couple months of getting used to the follies of Megan and Jealous, it's pretty cute at this point, there comes that kid. You know the one, it was probably me for some of my innocent friends and cousins, the one that pushes the line, makes you do things you know you shouldn't, tells you don't worry it will be fine, or it didn't hurt that bad. Enter "Skurdy". Skurdy is the same as nobody, you know when you ask them who spilled this? He now says Skurdy did it. He likes to tell us what Skurdy says or does, like Skurdy ate bird poop. Of course this catches you off guard and you say what? So his plan works flawlessly and he gets to say bird poop again. When you tell him we don't need to say things like that, he says not me, Skurdy said it.

You see what I'm up against here? I'm being played by a three year old, or should I say Skurdy. If there was just one kid I think I could handle it, but this makes me wonder what the 6 and 7 year olds are getting away with. There are three of them and only two of us, we have had to go from a man-to-man defense to a zone, and everyone knows a good shooter, or dribble penetration will nullify a zone in no time. So far the 7 year old shows good ball handling skills, and Skurdy is shooting the lights out.

I place my trust in my wife, she is "the big man in the middle", a great shot blocker, she contests every shot and plays at the rim. She is the coach on the floor, telling me where to be, who to cover, what shots to allow, and when to box out. As far as I can tell the score is all tied up, but it's only half time. All we can do is go out and keep doing what we did in the first half, we are all heart baby!

Check the box scores....It's anybody's ball game at this point.