It has not quite reached that point where, upon entry to my home, I, like Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies, have to call out not to be attacked. For those of you in the know, Clouseau, as played by Peter Sellers, has, in an effort to hone his fighting skills, instructed his Asian houseboy, Cato, to attack him without warning. What results is Cato attacking him once all threat of doing so has evaporated and with hilarious results. In later films what eventually happens is that Clouseau ends up having a terrible day and calls out to Cato not to attack him despite his previous instructions to ignore such instructions. And of course, Cato attacks him. Good stuff.
Anyway, my home has been compared to a pirate camp, a wild West saloon and, appropriately enough, something like a WWF training school. I was very bitter that, when my sister was living in Mexico, she was unable to source us some Lucha Libre wrestling masks.
I've written before in this blog that Wrestling is the key to good fathering. It, among other things, is a lot of fun and there is a lot of laughing. Also, it provides my boys with real and meaningful correction to super hero and video game fantasies about being all powerful. The key to a successful wrestling strategy is to stop while it is still fun and good natured or, as my wise father always says, "Quit While The Fun's Good." My middle son regularly complains that I always quit while the fun's good and I should instead quit when the fun's bad. But he is 9, a misanthrope and not to be trusted in such matters; I'll follow my dad's rule here.
So, wrestling is back on at the home and we are all happy with that. Even my oldest, who is getting too old and cool to do such things, upon his return from camp this weekend casually skulked by as the 9 year old and I were throwing it down. He got dragged into it and, despite minor protests was laughing as he was pinned. "Did you hear my back crack?" He asked proudly.
My youngest (almost 7) known universally as "The Tank" is the resident madman though. As described in the previously mentioned post he is the one who cracked one of my ribs by leaping knee first off a piece of furniture and into my side shouting, "Here I come to save the day!" Our bedtime routine has become a last ditch wrestling session. Some would feel that I'm 'working him up' but seriously the dude has so much energy I find it the best way to tire him out and burn off at least a little of his mania. I also have to confess to simply loving it - it's so fun and we're both laughing our guts out most of the time.
He killed me last night though when I uttered the usual wrap-up phrase to "Quite While The Fun's Good." He surprisingly gave his usual reply when I tell him to turn off the Wii, "Just a second, I have to beat this level first." Classic. I laughed so hard but then replied that this was the boss level and he would never beat it. And I put him down.
