Alone time with Anderson

Yesterday our favorite soccer team played a home game. Anderson was the only one who wanted to go.

We went and had a great time together.

As we've shared before, for those that don't really know him, he can talk. I mean he doesn't stop. Questions, comments, thoughts, jokes, anything. It is really funny and can really explode your brain if you try to take it on one on one. The energy from the game ramps up his talk meter.

On our way out of the house yesterday Bronwyn wished me "good luck." She knew the next three hours were going to be filled with 100's of Andersonisms.

And it was. Here is just a very small taste of what I heard yesterday:

On the way to the game in our car he was looking at the grass next to the road.

Anderson: "Dad how much grass is in the world?"
Me: "I don't know buddy."
Anderson: "More than posters?"
Me:  "I don't understand.  What posters?"
Anderson:  "Posters.  Like that one with the glasses on it (pointing to a billboard)."
Me: "Oh. Probably more than posters."
Anderson: "Way more than posters."
Me: "Probably so."
Anderson: "Stay with me dad."
Me: (laughing but not letting him hear me) "What did you say?"
Anderson: "Nothing."

We park for free at the games. We park on the street next to a hotel so that we don't get in horrible traffic around the stadium. This does mean we have about a 20+ minute walk to get to the stadium. Perfect talk time for Anderson.

Anderson: "Dad, what does chatterbox mean?"
Me: "Someone who likes to talk a bunch."
Anderson:  "Oh then that's me. I love to talk don't I dad."
Me: "Yep."
Anderson: "I just can't stop. It's impossible for me to stop."
Me: "Let's try."
Anderson: "What?"
Me: "Let's see how long you can go without talking. I'll time you to see how long you can do it. Try and see if you can go all the way to the stadium without saying another word. No talking until we buy our ticket. Okay."
Anderson: (smiling) "Sure."
Me: "Okay, 1-2-3 go."

Here are the results:  1st attempt: 47 seconds.  2nd attempt: 59 seconds.  3rd attempt: 19 seconds. Final attempt: 3 minutes and 20 seconds. If you really know Anderson the 3 minutes 20 seconds time is the biggest surprise of all. I was stunned that he could be quiet for that long. But, during each of those "quiet" times I confess that I have never heard him cough, clear his throat or giggle as much in his entire life.  It really is impossible for him.

We went to the ticket window to buy me a ticket (kids always get in free to games). The man helping us had an Inter jersey on with a big 100 on it. Anderson asked what it was for. I reminded him that last year was the 100th birthday of Inter. We then talked about how his birthday is just one day earlier than Inter's birthday. I told him if he could have just stayed in mom's tummy one more day he could have had the same birthday as our favorite team, but he just had to come out. Here's what I was told:

Anderson: "Dad, it was like heaven in there!"
Me: "Really?  You remember what it was like in mom's tummy?"
Anderson: "Yes, it was heaven. It was warm and I always had good food. I didn't want to come out. At night sometimes I had taco's for supper. It was heaven!"

In the game we bought popcorn from a man who obviously had a history of some kind of physical sickness. He couldn't talk, his walk and his hands were also affected. We talked to him and he could only nod yes or no. He was very nice and Anderson liked him. As he was leaving Anderson asked me this question:

Anderson: "Does he hand write?"
Me: "I don't understand."
Anderson: "Does he do hand writing?"
Me: "I still don't know what you mean."
Anderson: "You know write with his hands (as he demonstrates)."
Me: "Oh. I don't know if he does or not."

Obviously hand writing = sign language.

As we walk down the steps of the stadium after our victory Anderson asked which championship we just won. He really is into championships and winning. We try to work on that with him as we remind him it's just a game, it's not the most important thing, etc. But he really likes victories and championships.  (Remember Aggies, "It's not about winning. It's about who gets the most points.) So I try to tell him that this is just a regular season game in the Brasilian championship. Here's what I got:

Anderson: "So it is a championship!"
Me: "Not really. It's just part of the season. We won't know who won the championship until the end of the year."
Anderson: "Well in my imagination it's a championship."
Me: "Okay."
Anderson: "Can't we just say that we won the championship of this game?"
Me: "Absolutely."
Anderson: "Yes! I can't believe we won the championship of this game! Do we get a trophy?"
Me: "Uh, no."
Anderson: "Oh man. Well at least we are the champions."

And my personal favorite from the day.  As we were leaving the game and walking back to our car it had become even more cold, windy and rainy. We had this conversation:

Me: "Do you want to put your hood on?"
Anderson: "No it's okay. My hair isn't cold."

Here are the highlights from the goals scored if anyone cares to see them. As Anderson is a man of extremes you know that each one of our goals was greeted with a huge party by him. Like we really did win the championship.