Hockey and Highlights

Recently, Ethan has showed a renewed interest in hockey... much to my relief. Perhaps all my negative thoughts/words about basketball are beginning to take hold. Besides, even if he's 6'2" he's got my fast-twitch muscle DNA which means they'll be lucky to slide a piece of paper under his feet when he jumps. And, on top of that if he runs anything like me it's going to do nothing but good things for him to play a sport where gliding comes into play. But, I digress. Sunday, Ethan asked to go in the basement and play hockey which was a nice surprise. Though, i figured it would only last 5 minutes tops since that seems to be the limit to his attention span when it comes to anything. However, 30 minutes later we were still playing! It was a blast. He's getting better and better with his hand-eye coordination. And, after scolding him a few times for using his hands to pick up the ball and move it he's using his stick in almost every situation to get the ball out of tight spots. We did a lot of passing, and then I decided to show off my wizardry with my puck handling skills and Ethan quickly put me in my place. It's a humbling experience when a 4 year old steals the puck from you on a pretty regular basis. Granted, he was a madman swinging the stick and I was a little scared to make my moves too fancy and too close to him. It was a lot of fun though. And, not to worry... I redeemed myself when the inevitable fight broke out. It is hockey after all. I'm the John Scott of the household. For those of you who don't know who he is feel free to watch the clip below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1cvOiKuxH8

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=985bd9nTDGA

Ethan's uncle Nick had the pleasure of playing with Mr. Scott up at Michigan Tech. My dad has nothing but good things to say about his game. I also spent some time showing him the finer aspects of hooking and slashing. Hooking he doesn't seem to care for... slashing daddy on the other hand he thinks is hilarious.

Had that been the end of the hockey for the week I would have been happy... but, tonight after work I had to stop at the hockey shop to get my skates fixed and Ethan had a blast looking at all the equipment. He was showing me various pieces of equipment and telling me what each one was for. Then, we went to the back of the store and found the demo sticks for shooting and they had one cut for Ethan's size so we took turns shooting on the net. They had a practice shooting target in the net and Ethan was most excited when he hit the goalie(see below) and concerned when he actually scored and the puck went behind the net.

Before we were even in the car after leaving the store Ethan asked if we could play hockey again when we got home. So, Ethan and I ate, he finished before me and spent the rest of the time pestering me to go downstairs. Eventually we did and had just as much fun tonight as we did Sunday. After a while he decided we were going to play football down there which was a lot of fun as well. And yes, in case you're wondering I'm the James Harrison, or for the "older" crowd the Dick Butkus of the household. I'm just happy again he hasn't mentioned basketball.

For Christmas Ethan received a subscription to Highlights magazine from Uncle Nick, Aunt Carrie and Easton... I wasn't sure how that'd go since a lot of it is reading and puzzles I don't think he's ready for. But, he saw an issue in his book shelf last week and decided he wanted to look at it and he loves it. There are a lot of little puzzles in there besides all the stories. We spend almost all the time on the puzzles. And, he's actually found a couple of the items in the picture find all by himself! His favorite puzzle so far is two pictures next to each other that when you say them they become one word. For example, there is a picture of an eye and a picture of a ball... eyeball. He also enjoys the stories where they put pictures instead of words, the color games and the mazes. On top of finding the pictures he also did the maze all by himself tonight. He asked me to do it first so I traced the solution with my finger and as he started I was watching as he did it to see if he understood the concept and he surprised me by not only getting the concept but figuring the maze out. I was impressed! It was a lot of fun! I gave him lots of praise and I could see on his face he was pretty proud of himself. It was a great moment.

Anyway, I didn't have anything else. I'm just going to try and be more proactive about writing this and sharing little stories before they fade and blur into so many others I've already forgotten when it comes to him.