Weekend With The Boy

One of my comedic shticks is taking posed, goofy photos. It's what I do--especially back in college with Jeff, Gene and Adam. We'd always pose for strange pics -- pretending to be doing silly thing or pantomiming a goofy action, whatever.

What you are about to see looks like one of those posed photos. It looks like one of my typical posed shots--pretending to be dropping my nephew. But it's not.

Here's what happened. I was home for Easter and got to spend some time with The Nephew. My sister decided to take a picture. I posed all smiley, but right as the picture took, The Nephew did one of his notorious back arches. Yeah, I almost dropped him. Here's the proof:

You can just imagine that I am saying, "Whoooooa!"

Thankfully, the little guy stopped lunging and arching and all was well. I didn't drop him all weekend.

But we did have some great adventures together, such as discovering a baby in the mirror, playing catch and learning how to throw a curve ball. I also got to rock him to sleep. This was actually the first time I have ever put a baby to sleep.

He was very fussy and upset. He was too tired and was fighting it. I took him to his room and we rocked. (In a chair. Not to Black Sabbath.) He screamed. We rocked. He screamed more. The Intended came in because she heard the ruckus and knows that The Nephew likes music. Singing soothes him. So she sang. At first, it didn't work. He got so worked up that he stopped breathing, shook and turned purple. But he started to calm and we both sang.

Here's the thing: I don't remember song lyrics well. I don't know many songs. So I ran out quick once I'd sung "Go Go Go White Sox" and the Star Wars theme. So The Intended started a rousing version of "Hush Little Baby." But again, we ran out of verses we knew. And so, I had to improvise and The Nephew fell asleep to me singing this:

"Hush Little Baby, don't say a word, daddy's gonna buy you a new bullpen, and if that bullpen can't throw, Daddy's gonna buy you a Magglio. And if that Magglio goes to Detroit, Daddy's gonna buy you an Android. And if that Android malfunctions..."

Luckily, he was asleep by that point. I'm not sure what rhymes with malfunctions.

Then again, not rhyming didn't stop me from trying "Detroit" and "Android"...