Baller

All right, all right. Enough with the Jamesie Cat pictures already. We get the point. He's a darling sweetheart who keeps Yours Truly young at heart. This is the last set. I swear!

James is going to be a baller one day. Maybe when he's 7, maybe when he's 17. Maybe.

Basketball?

Maybe he'll be a rebounder...

Maybe a small forward...

A power forward?...

None of the above!

Because Jamesie is going to be a...

Soccer player!

Like his Papa Memel.

(Filipinos are notorious for calling their uncles "papa". Crazy relatives!)

He prefers to use his feet, not his hands.

Note the curled fingers, as he refuses to touch the ball which has been on the ground over the winter.

Note the intricate footwork this kid has:

But then he spies some Hot Wheels under the deck... (and forgot about the ball game).

So maybe he's not going to be a baller right away.

Stay young, Jamesie Cat! Stay young forever!

Don't do what your big brother does!

Don't do what I do!

Don't grow

up.

Some Privacy Please

Jamesie Cat is such a good boy. He's going through potty training right now, and thank goodness he's very tolerant of it. It being my obsessed insistence that he sit on the pot for 10 minutes at a time to make sure he goes both numbers. Number 1: pee. Number 2: poo. Because I really don't want to deal with Number 2 if it happened in any other place than the pot. Gag!

While adults pass the time with magazines, or by picking their hang nails, or staring at the little spec of dust on the corner to concentrate, James does this:

(Grrrrrrrrunt... Grrrrrrroan...)

Oh, hello Auntie Netty. Don't be scared, it's just me, Jamesie Cat.

Don't you have other things to do, Auntie Netty?

Yup, that's my aunt. She's neurotic!

Monster, you are my new bff. I wuv you.

Seriously, Auntie Netty. Some privacy, please!

Jamesie See, Jamesie Do

In case you haven't noticed, I've posted about Jamesie Cat three times in a row now. That's because last week, we hung out for three days. We went for walks, we cleaned house, snacked on Goldfish, we played ball, we played catch, we potty trained (well, James did, not me), and we played some more. During that time, I learned another valuable lesson about children - the first one being, if you don't want a kid to do something, tell him to do it, like that pine cone he ate.

That lesson is that children do and say what their guardians do and say. So instead of screaming obscenities that contained the words damn and god in the same sentence, and four letter words that begin with S and end with T, which is the same stuff that James leaves in his little training bowl, I bit my tongue when I splashed bleach on my black Twilight t-shirt. And when I felt like curling up on the couch to watch TV while the sun lit and heated up the earth, I led the little monkey down the stairs to the backyard instead, and laid in the cool, dry grass.

Oh, if it counts as another lesson learned, then I'll mention that 3 year olds don't see the hippo, the tiger, or the octopus floating in the blue ocean of the sky.

But get this, James, who is deathly afraid of the ground - I mean, so afraid that he would tuck his fingers into a fist, rather than use the palm of his hand, to break a fall - laid down right next to me! As if to prove to me that if I can lie on the ground, he sure can as well.

What's more, he took it further. He invited me to lay on the flagstones with him.

But alas, it was my turn to do what three year olds do, so I did the opposite: I stayed standing.

Jamesie see, Jamesie do.

Buttercup

Have you ever noticed that once a kid fixates on an object, there's no taking it away without him/her throwing a hissy fit? Take Jamesie Cat, for instance. On this day, the objects in question were a buttercup and a baseball bat.

I picked a buttercup for him, and showed him how much he liked butter based on the yellow stain on his chin. (Ssssh, don't tell his mom that the reason the skin stains yellow is because of the toxin in the flower... Of course I didn't know that until just a few minutes ago, when I Googled "buttercup".)

Sing with me now!

Why do you build me up Buttercup, baby

Just to let me down and mess me around

And then worst of all you never call, baby

When you say you will but I love you still

I need you more than anyone, darlin'

You know that I have from the start

So build me up Buttercup,

Don't break my heart

I need you more than anyone, darlin'

You know that I have from the start

So build me up Buttercup,

Don't break my heart

-The Foundations

See that bat?

Yes, the yellow one.

He wouldn't let it go for a chocolate

chip cookie, or two. Not even three.

He carried it everywhere.

"Let me put my buttercup in my pocket so I can play...

... golf-soccer-baseball."

"I'll help you take down the Christmas

lights, but I'm not putting the bat down."

Nope, he wouldn't let go of it. He held the lights with

one hand, and spun around to wind it around himself.

But he wouldn't let it go. Not when I

bribed him with a sip of my Kool Aid.

He turned his nose up at me, and continued winding up

the Christmas lights. Did I mention he still didn't let go of

the bat?

Nope.

He didn't. Let go, that is.

Not even when I threatened to relieve him of his Christmas

lights-holder duty. He just pouted, and refused to acknowledge

my presence. But he wouldn't let the bat go.

Buttercup.

Don't break my heart.

James 'n Me

James n' me.

We go together like bread n' butter.

We go together like peanut butter n' jelly.

We go together like chicken noodle soup.

Huh?

Yes, chicken noodle soup. You know: hearty, comforting, homely.

We go together like finadeni.

What?

You know, Guamanian bbq dipping sauce.

Ah, jiggly pillow...

We go together like bacon n' eggs.

James being the egg because he's smooth, compact, and cute.

And I would be the bacon because of said jiggles.

James n' me.

He Breathes and Sleeps College Football

5-Star Scotty is a die hard fan of Husky Football. He always has been since he was a wee little boy playing in peewee league.

Decades after his peewee days, he finally met Sunny Sixkiller. Mr. Sixkiller - I just love saying his name - was a starting quarterback for the University of Washington Huskies from 1970-1972.

5-Star Scotty has been under the weather lately. Yesterday, he was so exhausted he went to bed before a toddler's bedtime. I followed about three hours later. As I climbed into bed he bolted upright, with a sudden urgency to talk about the NCAA football news regarding TV networks.

"Did you read what ESPN has to say about the NCAA?" he said with such energy.

"No."

"ESPN reported that the powers that be in the NCAA went behind the schools backs to advise the TV networks... [blah, blah, blah]."

And right after he finished his sentence, he laid back down and went back to sleep.

This is what happens when you live with a football fan that breaths and sleeps college football. And all this was instigated by the latest fiasco with the USC Trojans.