Dropping the Ball

While I was at work the other day, Diana took the boys to a hipster part of town to do some exploring. After their fill of skinny jeans (not exclusive to Chicago hipsters, apparently), they stopped at an outdoor ice cream parlor.

Immediately after eating two bites of his ice cream, Elijah declared himself full. Luca, who is still in his “I’ll eat your shoe if you put it on my high chair tray” stage, enthusiastically attacked Eli’s portion. That left Eli some time to kill.

How did he spend it? By dancing, of course.

I love him so much. Why? This kid, according to Diana, pulled a Fred Astaire from one end of the ice cream parlor to the other. Now, this was not an empty ice cream parlor. This was a full ice cream parlor. Including a table of construction workers, who sat slack jawed while Eli shimmied and shook two feet away. And the best part? Diana swears he wasn’t dancing as a performance. He honestly didn’t care if anyone saw him. He just had to dance.

When I expressed my extreme pleasure at this story, Diana responded, “As long as you’re ok with the fact that he can’t catch a ball.”

Oh, yeah. That.

While Eli is great at athletic activities like dancing and playing on the computer, his traditional baseball/football skills have something to be desired.

It became painfully clear when my friend Jimmy’s sons came over to play. Jimmy’s two year old’s curve ball broke at two feet while Eli’s version of catch was stopping the ball with his face.

And I blame myself.

Oh, I’ve tried to work on his eye-hand coordination, by tossing him a giant purple ball in the living room. But after the tenth time it bashed him in the face I said, “Who wants to play Star Wars?”

I mean, I don’t really care if he’s good at sports. Ask billionaire Justin Beiber’s dad if he cares that his son is a dancer. But I do feel like I’m not doing my dad job if the boy gets to age 4 without knowing the difference between a baseball and a lawn chair.

And I meant to get him outside yesterday to play ball. Honestly. But we went to the zoo instead. And what’s more manly than being three feet from a lion?

p.s. I know that’s me and Luca in this photo, but I don’t have any photos of Eli and me next to the lion. He was dancing.