Little Rugger In Training

I took LR to the last 2 rugby practices. He wanted to join in all their activities and they were more than grateful for the distraction. He jumped right in to the stretching at the beginning of practice. They instructed him on how to touch his toes. After trying for a while he announced, "my legs are too short" which made everyone laugh. I had more than one player come up to tell me how cute he was and how well spoken. Sometimes I forget how nice it is to have a kid with strong verbal skills. His favorite word game now is to match words that he thinks sound alike. Last night I served spinach. He said, "spinach, like 'spin.'" And then he said, "spinach, like 'itch.'" Right. spin + itch = spinach. Makes sense.

At the second practice he came to, he hoped into the end of the line of rookies marching for initiation. He was like the smallest elephant in the line in The Jungle Book. He mimicked everything they did. It was adorable. They couldn't get enough and I hope next year he can come with me to more practices. You can't tell from the pictures, but he's wearing a large sweatshirt from Gigi which says, "Rugger in training." The team really appreciated that and were more than willing to practice lifting him in a line and throw a ball with him. While we sat in a circle discussing the history of initiation, he tackled everyone by running into them and pushing them over. Cute at practice. Not cute with the babies. Let's hope he can make the distinction.