Eric started his new music class today. I could not get out of work early this week, so I missed it. The new music CD is the Frog collection. After dinner, we played the new CD in the living room and danced and played through the whole thing. Eric already recognized a couple of the songs that he heard in class today. He especially liked hopping around like a frog and saying “ribbit!”
After the music CD, we played ball. Eric and I played catch. Eric is very good at throwing but still learning to catch. We threw the ball back and forth for a while. Eric was holding his hands together in front of him, but the ball kept falling between his arms. Finally, he caught it! I congratulated him and told Mommy all about his catch. He was thrilled! Mommy played catch with us for a while. We threw the ball around in a triangle. Eric caught the ball again later. While we were throwing the ball, I kept encouraging him to catch it. The ball now was his small orange plastic ball, just a little smaller than a tennis ball. At one point I said, “Keep your eye on the ball!” To which Eric responded by holding the ball against his eye! Mommy and I could hardly stop laughing.
After playing catch, Mommy left us alone in the living room again. Eric picked up another ball, larger than the first. He wanted to play “soccer”. He made sure we were both standing at opposite ends of the living room. He carefully placed the ball on the floor in front of him. This process was actually pretty entertaining. Eric held the ball in both hands. He spread his legs and put himself into a half squatting position. He looked like a sumo wrestler preparing for a match. He then bent over at the waist and placed the ball on the floor. With the ball precisely where he wanted it, he stood up. Eric straightened his legs and kicked the ball. I blocked it with my foot and kicked it back to him. We kicked back and forth several times. On one particular kick, I kicked a little too hard, and the ball hopped across the room over some of his toys. Eric ran to pick it up, but not before scolding me, “Gentle, Daddy, Gentle”. This is the phrase we use with Eric frequently when he is playing too rough or throwing or kicking too hard.