<\/p>\n
Last weekend Rachelle and I took our nearly three year-old son Jones to soccer.<\/p>\n
He’s too young for soccer, as are all the other toddlers in the class, but it still felt like a virtuous way to spend the morning. And so all the parents sat on the picnic tables scattered about the unmowed patch of green that was the field, while rosy-cheeked Coach Nancy, all of 13 years-old, benevolently led our children through their \u201cdrills.\u201d This, a summer job she would surely look back upon as amongst the best of her life.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n Above us turrets set against an easy, deep blue, and in front of us about a dozen children either ignoring or doing some improbable variant of the stretching exercises Coach Nancy was encouraging them to follow. Jones was in the totally ignoring her camp. Putting the tiny, orange pylons on each of his arms he declared himself Iron Man, and after acting like a robot for a minute or two, carefully placed one of the pylons on my head.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n And then he ran away and across the field to the perimeter where beds of stones lay waiting for his curiosity. He marvelled at them like the precious jewels they were.<\/p>\n