When he wakes up in the morning, instead of crying, he just yells “Da Da” in the most perfect little voice until I wake up. When he’s ready for breakfast, he climbs in his highchair and yells “Eat, Eat.”
He’s already taken a liking to some of my favorite things, like the “Dan Patrick Show” and the Avett Brothers (For about six months, we had to watch his favorite “Brothers” concert before bed every night. I’m not kidding. Every. Single. Night.)
When we go to Target, he loves sharing a bag of popcorn with me, but absolutely has to have it in his own cup.
He quickly fell in love with sports, too. He can already name all the different types of sports balls, with his favorite being his mini-NBA basketball.
My goal of brainwashing him to love football and the Bengals has worked perfectly. (Although my wife Carey is doing a good job tricking him into liking the Broncos, teaching him to say “Tebow” just last weekend. My quick thoughts on Tebow: I have nothing against his beliefs. I’m fine with it. I admire his toughness. But when you can barely complete a pass for three quarters and still manage to win, why should you get ALL the credit? Just saying. Carey, on the other hand, loves him like a newborn puppy.)
When it comes to falling in love with basketball, however, the Wiz Kid didn’t need my help.
A few months ago, my parents’ lifelong neighbors, Nick and Melanie VanHoose, had a garage sale. When it was all said and done, one of the few items remaining was a Little Tikes basketball hoop (which I was hoping Santa would bring him).
They didn’t need the hoop, and gave it to my parents for Christian. It didn’t take him very long to pick up the concept with some help from my brothers — put the ball into the orange hoop. It’s been his favorite thing ever since.
My mom Henrietta called later that day with the news: “You should see Christian shoot on this Little Tikes hoop! He’s got moves!”
At first, I didn’t believe it. How can my 18-month-old understand basketball and I didn’t teach him a single thing? He just picked up the ball and started making baskets.
A few days later, the hoop was inserted into our living room, and hasn’t moved since. He’s shooting and dunking everything like Blake Griffin — his mini basketball, my regulation size basketball, soccer balls, balloons, toothbrushes, his toy cars. He can’t get enough of basketball. We’ve even had to move the hoop up to the third level to make it more challenging. I’m amazed.
The Wiz Kid doesn’t like going places without his basketball either. He cried until my wife would let him take it in our van on a recent shopping trip. Before long, he’ll be sleeping with it like “Pistol Pete” Maravich.
Last weekend, I asked him if he wanted to go watch the Southeastern girls play Greeneview.
His response: “Oh yeah.”
We took him to some games last year, but it was nothing like this time. He sat in amazement for two quarters (that’s all he can take right now), continually going “Whoa.” He kept pointing at the game ball, yelling ‘Ball!’ and ‘Catch!’ as if they were going to pass it to him in the crowd. He’s already got a shoot-first mentality.
It was one of my favorite father-son moments so far.
One of many, many, many more to come.
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