Friday Night, Baby

Madeleine plays Friday Night Fives, losing 3-2 - improvement! - and I ask if their opponents handicapped? Eitan busts up from the back-seat. From there we go to swim practice and the improvement impressive: Madeleine laps for an hour while Eitan 90 minutes. Proudly, he tells me 1,600 meters or 64 laps. The boy needs 42 strokes to cross 25 meters and since I've had a revelation regarding stroke technique, I want to share it with my future Olympians. This nets a donut as both inform me oh-so-bluntly that they would rather die then receive help from Dad. When I press, Eitan: "Why do I care? What does it have to do with football?" and Madeleine: "Be quiet." Fair enough, though my prior jock inwardly hurting. And indeed, tomorrow is football, as Eitan reminds me like, infinity. The Kew Park Rangers next "friendly" tournament on 21 June, which conflicts with the Summer Fair so I just might not tell him. This sets an unpleasant precedent but, hey, he cannot go anyway so why knock him up? (I may revise the story under assumption that the playground knows all). The better long-term news is that Eitan on KPR's travelling squad for league play starting September. The Rangers field two age-nine teams of 11, including substitutes, and over-subscribed as break-away Kew Association folded after taking the best players and now want in. We, will .. what is the word I am, looking for?.. oh - yes, CHERRY PICK the kids we want back. Now I would never suggest that I am an overly aggressive soccer dad -- at least on the pitch, anyway. Eitan delighted to have Callum from KA who, Eitan informs me, "is, like, the best player in East Sheen" which, you know, says a lot.

Madeleine: "Dad, how many pages until you finish that book?"
Me: "Well, if I have read 250 pages and there are 300, how long will it take?"
Madeleine: "An hour?"

Sonnet to Eitan, after desert: "Stop eating Doritos!"