Two Fun Dominick Stories

The first one is quick: Dominick got out the tape measure and said "Mommy, I am going to see how tall you are." He lengthens the tape to my height, looks at it, and says "Mommy, you're twenty-two dollars high." Hmmm, I may need to ask his teachers at the parent teacher conference when they start learning about measurements. The second story involves soccer. This winter Roman and I enrolled Dom in indoor soccer through the YMCA. The good news is he gets an opportunity to learn a few soccer basics without too many stringent rules. The bad news is it is every Saturday morning, or as my mother likes to call it, payback. Preschool soccer is pretty much a handful of kids spending the first half practicing kicks and participating in drills like sprints and jumping jacks. The second half involves two teams of children who don't really know what they are doing (except the coach's kids, natch), running back and forth on the field, trying to kick the ball into the goal or throw themselves on the ball to make sure no one else gets it. It's a pretty good time. Today's game (the last one of the winter season), Dom played a lot, mostly because he is always game to run around and doesn't have meltdowns like some of the other kids (he saves those for trips to Costco). The thing about Dom is when he is paying attention, he does fairly well. But when something catches his eye (Squirrel!) he seems to forget he's playing soccer and wander off. This is pretty typical preschooler behavior. Today the parents cheering on the sidelines distracted him from playing. Rather than following the ball with the other kids, he ran up and down the sidelines, looking at the parents and doing something weird to his face. Then we saw it- he was winking and smiling at all of them, like he was a celebrity or something. Anytime he would hear us or the coaches cheer for him, he would stop, turn a shoulder to us, and give us a cute smile and a wink. You would think he was David Beckham, and rather than playing for the YMCA Lions, he was playing for Manchester United. Sigh. My Dom.