New, Temporary, Not-Terribly-Soporific Bedtime Ritual

This year we've caught a touch of spring basketball fever, aided by the NCAA's amazing bracket feature, which lets you check in on scores for games in progress, and then click to watch whichever one looks most promising.

I'll admit that most of my basketball loyalties are a) purely geographic (Gonzaga, Boston College) b) second-hand (Ohio State, North Carolina) or c) a little rusty (UCLA) -- and thus not the kind of desperate, bargain-with-God-for-a-freethrow sort of passion that had me screaming at the television years ago. In fact, some of my basketball loyalties are so sketchy that I'm open to persuasion by a rival team that seems to merit my admiration (nice try, Akron!)

In Simon's case, the even flimsier grounds for his allegiances do not translate into diminished intensity; for him, it's a matter of life or death, even if he can't quite keep straight which team he's rooting for. I'm trying to introduce a more philosophical approach -- something along the lines of, "Sure it's more fun to watch if you care who wins, but not if it makes you want to slit your wrists when they lose" -- but it's tough going. I was glad he'd gone to bed before the nail-biting end of the UCLA game on Thursday night, as I was having some trouble maintaining my own equanimity. And when we checked in at 8:45 Friday and noticed that the Ohio State game looked close, I briefly considered the wisdom of getting him all riled up so close to bedtime. But it was too late... and besides, I wanted to watch. (My loyalties may be feeble, but my enjoyment of the game is not.)

Once Simon got oriented ("the guys in white shirts are Jenny's team"), he quickly became obsessed. And stressed! As the game teetered back and forth he buried his head in my lap, peeking out between his fingers to ask, "Are they ahead? Did they make it? Who has the ball now?"

"Do you want to keep watching?" I asked, after Siena's Ronald Moore nailed the three-point shot that tied the game at the end of the first OT, causing Simon to jump out of my lap, shouting "I don't want to die!"

He ran to the doorway and peeked back: "Kind of."

So we did.

When it was all over -- after Moore hit another killer three-pointer to put Siena ahead with four seconds left -- we were both stunned, limp with exhaustion, and sincerely anguished on my sister-in-law's behalf. "What will happen to the Ohio guys now?" Simon asked. "Nothing will happen to them. They'll just go home." "Do you think Jenny was watching?" he asked. "I bet she was," I replied. "Do you think she's really sad?" "I'm sure she is, but she'll be okay eventually. Maybe Lexi will give her a big hug."

Unfortunately "limp with exhaustion" did not mean "about to fall asleep." It took a long, slow chapter of The Wind in the Willows and a full cycle of "Daddies Sing Goodnight" on the CD player to get our boy unwound from this emotional rollercoaster.