Going Commando (week 241)

Christopher introduced a new obsession with taking off his pants and diaper this week. It happens quickly. He will disappear for a moment and re-emerge with his shirt and shoes on, but nothing else from the waist down. Already, there have been a few accidents resulting in a thorough search of the house for poo poo smeared on the floors or walls. He is like a crazy man. The second he gets a moment alone he begins stripping off his shorts and then pulling frantically at his diaper Velcro to free himself up. At night or at naps, we have resulted in using the "crazy suit" again--full body, long-sleeved, zippered, footy pajamas--he cannot even be trusted in his own crib lately. Daddy is worried that this might become a lifelong passion to share himself with the world.

The source of Christopher's new obsession with free-balling is seemingly clear. It all sort of started with his curiosity of the toilet, and standing-up to pee. Once he realized that his diaper provided an insurmountable barrier to relieving himself in the toilet he began to devise ways to conquer the challenge. Soon, one obsession led to the other and he is now on 24 hour watch, with the threat of soon being returned to the humiliating requirement of wearing only footy pajamas or Onsies throughout the day and night.

After a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house at the beginning of the week, we were happy to be home but sure miss the freedom of the farm. While Mommy went to Ohio for work, we got to go to the Central Coast to build soccer goals, fall into the duck pond, drive the tractor, and eat pancakes with Grandma and Grandpa. Cousin Eli was also there so we had non-stop fun. Mommy and Daddy seem to think that spending a few days away is a great idea for everyone and have been overheard planning the next opportunity for Chris and I to spend with our grandparents. We also play hard all day and everyone sleeps hard all night, but I think the grandparents have a shorter battery life than our parents and need a longer re-charging period.

This week the Silver Sharks lost their first big game to the Tigers--a formidable opponent with a host of very big and dominant kids on their front line. In the end it was only 3-2 in favor of the Tigers, and it took the Sharks donating 2 of those goals by scoring on ourselves. Zidane got his first taste of the back of the net and went crazy jumping, celebrating, and cheering for himself as you would imagine someone celebrating a goal at the highest levels of international play. The only problem was that the game winning goal he scored...the 5th and final goal of the afternoon...was in the back of our net and sealed the victory for the opposing team. A day later, I don't think he knows that the goal he scored was for the other team so we just celebrated with him. Coach Daddy is still scratching his head about how to get our team to shoot on the right goal (we spend at least 25 percent of our halftime speech each week pointing at the goal we are aiming for before taking the field in the second half).