10/11-12/2006 - D-FENSE

Throughout the excitement of elections (and a few sleepless) nights, I have barely had a chance to blog.  At some point, I have a post-election blog, but not today.

 

The bigger news around the Fellow residence is that I took the eldest to see the Celtics play last night.  This may seem an odd place to take a 4.75 year old who sometimes gets overwhelmed at birthday parties, but we have done it once before and it worked surprisingly well.  The other 10,000 attendees in the stands didn't interact with him, so he was able to think of the two of us as being in our own world.  He mostly sat on my lap and cuddled.  We read some stories and occasionally talked about basketball.  Towards the end of the game, when the PA system kindly requested everyone to scream, he buried his face in my chest, hands on ears, but was otherwise unpreturbed.

 

This year was different.  It started off worse but got much better.  Before the game, they turned off the lights to introduce the players.  My son immediately demanded that we leave.  So we waited by the concession stand (where we bought sliced fruit) until the game had begun.  He wasn't sure that he was ready to go back into the stadium, but I eventually convinced to have his dinner in our seats, after which we could leave if he wanted.

 

He didn't want.  He kept his eyes fixed on the game and even asked me questions about it.  He never climbed into my lap and was never interested in the books we brought with us.  But here's what made me realized that times had changed:  In the 4th quarter (which was very exciting) he started getting into "being a fan."  When the crowds cheered "DE-FENSE," my boy was right there with them.  I had to explain what defense was, but that seemed immaterial, in retrospect.  During timeouts, he danced to the music.  When the Celtics scored he cheered with the crowds.

 

The Bobcats tied things up at the end of the 4th, so we stayed for over time, which ended in a dramatic, buzzer-beating basket by the Celtics.  For the record, my son has gone to two games and the Celtics have won both of them.  We're available for attendence whenever they like.

 

30,500 steps over these two days.  GO TEAM!