Paddy wanted me to play Battleships and Othello with him last night. He calls Othello “Checkpoint”. I have no idea why, but he is confident about it, and I like it so much I haven’t corrected him.
He has figured out a way to “cheat” at Battleships. He gives himself the role of Lazlo Carreidas in Tintin “Flight 714″, and I get to play Captain Haddock. Carreidas is a millionaire who uses closed circuit TV to see his opponent’s board, so this gives Paddy a chance to come over and look at my board before he plans his attack. This is sort of a “cheat” in the same way that video games have cheat codes — it gives him an edge that he may well need. At five he is not capable of the strategy of scatter-shot that comes naturally to older people when they play this game.
I told him that there was not a brother in the house or another person in the world besides his mom who would let him have such a handicap. But for his Mom, who would feel guilty beating him anyway, this turns out to be a plus. We got to play Carreidas/Haddock scripts for the duration, and I get to see that he knows how to find points on a graph without a problem. In Othello he had a little trouble seeing how to make his chip placement count.
Later on I found Paddy in his Dad’s office “helping” him design robots for Kevin’s new computer game. Later on Paddy and Kevin played NCAA Football together. The teens looked for funny videos on You Tube.
Earlier, at Mass, Paddy decided to ponder theologically and said “Jesus and God are the most powerful guys in the world” and then later started asking me something about Jonah and the whale. Then he fell asleep, which is what he usually does since our Mass is at 4 pm Saturday afternoon. When we were leaving Mass he shouted “HI!” to one of the churchgoers, a gentleman whose grown children are just a bit younger than we are. “I saw you at the store!” Paddy continued with great friendliness. This is SO not like our family, we agreed with amusement in the car. At his age no one would open a conversation with a mere acquaintance. I think this has to be the difference between an extrovert and an introvert; we haven’t raised him any differently.
A few other notes on life:
It got COLD here again. Clare has been doing yard work to earn money for a swim suit. She raked the front and swept the driveway and garage yesterday.
Brendan finished stacking the two cords of firewood we got a couple of weeks ago. The chill in the air gives us a chance to use the firewood. Brendan also swept the deck.
Kieron got some water-balloon grenades and he and Sean were having a battle out in the front. I made them vow to pick up every scrap of balloon.
Kieron also bought some jacks (he had a couple of extra dollars he had earned after he bought Sonic Heroes) and gave some to Aidan, who is using them as tops. Everything that comes into his hands, Aidan tries to spin.
