Saturday, May 14, 2011

Soccer

Orion goes tearing down the length of the basement soccer ball pinned between his four remaining needle teeth. I look up casually, pulling laundry from the washer. A second later Zachary goes flying past me.
"Woah. He is good!" Zachary calls, as he's jetting left then right, trying to distract Orion into giving up the ball. There's a thud, as Zachary bounces off the wooden storage units. Orion won that check.
I toss the jeans in the dryer. Underwear, underwear, underwear--the whole reason for doing laundry in the first place. Use to be Orion would crawl all over my laundry basket during this procedure, chewing the handle, messing up any folded laundry I had inside, but not tonight. Little David Beckum himself would've been proud. A ball goes soaring in the basement air.
"Good kick Zachary," I say.
"Oh that wasn't a kick, that was a knee."
I nod with astute seriousness. Orion on the other hand launches himself at the ball, jumping with the bounce, legs sprawled, and pins the ball before trotting off with it in his mouth.
I am beginning to chuckle over 9 year old boy and 4 month old puppy doing laps back and forth in the basement. Boy is sweating, dog is hopefully getting worn out too. They go running up the stairs and I hear Zachary calling Orion by his middle name and it just makes me chuckle.
"Ooooriiiiiion Timothy," he calls, stretching the vowels of Orion's name as he likely is swinging to snag the ball.
"So are we going to go out and play soccer?" Zachary asks as Orion is momentarily distracted by a pipe cover.
"It's like 9 PM!" I say, "We should be getting ready for bed."
"Tomorrow is Sunday," Zachary states matter-of-factly.
"Yes, and unlike you my dear friend, I have to go to work and will be up at 7."
"Seven's not so bad."
"Yes it is."
"No. I get up at that time all the time."
"Fine, we'll let him go pee then a few minutes of kicking not long though."
Compromise with a nine year old, but in all honesty, I was having a good time.

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