obsessed with balls again

Theo has a renewed interest in balls. It is basketball season now and while I don’t think he likes it quite as much as football he does often sit on the couch, point at the TV, and repeat Ball Ball over and over. We think this means “turn on the tv and find a game for me dad.” So we humor him from time to time and turn on a game. Now that he has some bball games under his belt he likes to pretend he is dribbling a basketball. He might do this in his car seat, high chair, or anywhere else he is not able to actually play bball. He sticks out his arm very straight and stiff and then bounces it up and down – more like a rapper leading a crowd to jump. He also practices a throwing motion. This he seems to do regularly in the high chair and sometimes with food in his hand and sometimes he actually throws the food which is not good and usually results in a reprimand and poorly disguised laugh from Mom or Dad.

It all came to a climax this weekend in Portland. We went to the Nike employee store and there was a container of foot, basket, and soccer balls in different colors at the front of the store. He quickly got obsessed with the balls. He would point at the compartment of pink footballs and say ball ball over and over again until we handed him one. Then he would point at the green ones until we gave him one of those. He generally held one for a second and then threw it down and then pointed at the next one until he got one. He then settled in and decided he really liked the soccer ball. So he walked around the store for 20 minutes with it. Occasionally he would stop and throw it toward me or drop it and kick it. And on a few occasions a friendly store employee would coax him into throwing the ball to them. A group of about 4 guy employees wanted to see him throw it. He got stage fright and never did. But a minute later he did for one of the cute girls who wanted him to do the same thing. A natural ladies man. In the end we bought him a small basketball and soccer ball. He was still obsessed with them when we got home and had to sleep with the basketball in his crib. He got so worked up every time Penny took it away that she finally conceded and let him sleep with it and Dougie.