It’s that time of the year again. March Madness. And as well as the Fighting Irish are playing headed into this year’s NCAA tournament, the potential is there for the tournament to provide more madness than ever. You know by now that I am a fan of all things Notre Dame. And I am excited that most experts consider the Irish legitimate contenders to win the tournament. But to tell you the truth, that doesn’t thrill me. There has always been some comfort in the limited expectations for Irish basketball come tournament time. You can’t be disappointed when things you reasonably consider to be impossible don’t come to be. It would be like me feeling a sense of disappointment that I’m not playing center in the NBA. All 5 foot 8 of me. So when the magical voices of ESPN start talking about the Irish playing like a team that can win it all, I start feeling like a 7 footer. Maybe I should be in the NBA. Maybe I should change my name to Shaq. All of a sudden I’m set to to experience…., well, exactly what I’ve come to experience every Notre Dame football season for the last 22 years that has started with high hopes. Madness.
We were at the dinner table last night and Katie was trying to get Elliott excited about reading her a book after dinner. I started clapping my hands, kicking off a sort of impromptu pep rally. I said, “Elliott, you tell your mama you want to watch Notre Dame in the Big East Tournament after dinner tonight.” For a moment it looked like he was going to fulfill my request. But then he paused, and he turned to me and asked, “what’s that?” They enjoyed the book. The good thing about March Madness when you have two young boys is you’ve had the practice of the madness of the eleven months preceding it. It has quieted a bit lately as Ian seems to have transitioned from the terrible twos to the occasionally difficult twos. He has even moved into the big boy bed. With the move came some not so fond memories of Elliott’s early days in the bed without walls, and his nightly journeys around the house that would end up at my side of the bed. So far, there are no signs of Ian needing rope therapy. I did enjoy going back and reading about Elliott’s rope experience. THE ROPE INCIDENT Like I mentioned earlier, Katie has been working a lot with Elliott on his reading. He likes to sound out words and spell as many as he can. I was giving him his bath the other night and he held up his plastic turtle. He said, “Daddy, I can’t sound out what this is.” “Why not,” I asked. “Because I’d have to say a potty word,” he answered. “What are you talking about?” He didn’t pause a second before he started smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth and pointing his face at me while repeating a very exaggerated pronunciation of the letter T. T T T T T, then came er er er er er, and finally d d d d d. “Terd,” he said. “Terd is a potty word so you can’t sound out terd – le.” What can you possibly say to that? Katie got a new camera that she’s been playing with. She has captured some nice pictures of the boys that I’ll share below. As I experience the joy of looking at our wonderful boys today, my prayers go out to the families in Japan who have lost children and loved ones in the Tsunami today. May God’s comforting hand rest on each of them.
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