Braving Boys

Joey was telling John a confusing story. John said, “What are you talking about?” Joey said, “I don’t know, I stopped listening to myself after the first word.”

Joey became a Dinomite Student today. Every year, the kids at his elementary school vie for a Friday honor. In kindergarten, they shoot for Shining Star. In first grade, it’s Apple of My Eye (Danny didn’t get picked this week, but he’s OK with that). And in third grade, this special folder comes home. Inside is a questionnaire Joey has already completed (his favorite music is rock, his favorite foods are ribs and garlic bread, his favorite subject is math and so on), and on Monday, he’ll cart into class a few photos of himself. Then the whole package will somehow be displayed in the classroom for the week, until another Dino kiddo is chosen next Friday.

Oh, and on another paper in his folder are a bunch of words his classmates wrote describing him: Good friend, cool, very nice, nice work, good job, smart, video gamer and fast. He is fast. Well, and the other things too.

Joey is proud. We are proud. And we’re taking him out for dinner tonight. For ribs.

We hadn’t been to an actual class at the time of this photo shoot. So I’m sure the pose is not martial-arts approved.  And the belt, well, we didn’t know any better and just tied a knot.

But that was hours ago, and now, Danny has been to a class — his very first ever martial arts class — and he knows so much more, like how to punch, and do head-blocks (his term, maybe not the right one), and bow at the door, and the belt — he got a one-on-one lesson, so I’m thinking his technique will improve.

Danny picked martial arts as his fall activity (baseball just ended), and I was worried, because he also picked tennis a few weeks ago — he did fine for the first lesson, I forced him to the second one, and then he was done. But he loved marital arts. He’s even announced that he’ll keep doing it until he’s a grown-up, for two reasons: (1) so he can get good at it and (2) so he can protect himself. I like the way he thinks.

I birthed two boys, and I want no more. Either does Helen Austin, who sings this little ditty. Love the watermelon bit.

“My legpit hurts,” Danny declared in the car the other day. “Your legpit?” I asked. “What’s that?” He pointed to the area right behind his knee, right where the leg bends. Sure enough, that must be the legpit, because, well, it’s so much like, you know — the armpit.

We took our last big summer trip this weekend, to Joey’s birthplace — Daytona Beach. And while we stayed in this really nice condo right on the beach, we didn’t really spend much time on the sand or in the water. There was an hour or spent in the waves on Friday and two nighttime visits to the dark ocean, but mostly the boys wanted to fish. So we drove five miles away and spent most of Saturday and Sunday at the river, where Joey and Danny were content, and happy — and way productive. Joey’s favorite cast net delivered them trout, flounder and shrimp. And the shrimp on a hook scored them mullet and catfish (see above). They were in heaven. So were we. And if time permits and tropical storms stay away, my three guys will squeeze in one more fishing trip (this time on an uncle’s new boat) before school starts and vacation ends. I’ll hold down the home fort for this trip — I mean, fishing is great and all, but peace and quiet is quite a catch too.

“Let’s stop catching the fish,” I told Joey on Tuesday as he was throwing his cast net into the ocean at Cedar Key and scoring handfuls of baby fish, whose heads were getting stuck in the holes of the net. For the most part, the fish were surviving — Joey captured them, then he and Danny plucked them from the tangles and plunged them into a bucket of water — but we lost one, and that made me sad.

“Mom,” Joey said, “This is fishing. You catch fish, and some die. There are lots of fish in the world.”

Fair enough, I thought, and so I let Joey continue pulling in fish after fish. Then I saw the sign:

No Fishing or Swimming Allowed.

“Joey, I just noticed this sign,” I said, pointing. My almost third grader turned, read the words we both missed when we first arrived on the dock and said: “Uh-Oh, we better go.”

“Yep, we better.”

And we did.

And after a few minutes of admiring what he’d worked so hard for, Joey set his family of fish free into the waters of the West coast. And that made me feel so much better.

If things don’t work out with the whole shoe store manager thing, 6-year-old Danny could always be a rock star. Here, one of the tracks he’s been working on — “Hot Dog.” He filmed this music video in his studio (bedroom), with just a video camera and a guitar. One song came before this one (“Hot Lava Gun”) and a few came after (“Room Number,” “Time of My Life,” Get the Autograph”), but this is our all-time fave.