Sometimes Children Have Great Judgment...

On this cloudy Sunday afternoon, I went to the birthday party of one of my relatives. I'm not sure how we're related. I think he married my cousin. I went with my family to his birthday party. As Luis and I drove there I realized that his name is Janis, and he's born in January. The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, the god of gates and doorways, beginnings and endings. My cousin-in-law(?) is actually Greek (which is practically Roman), so I'm assuming that his parents must have named him Janis because he was born in January.

Very clever. It's almost on par with naming your child April because she was born in April.

Eh...so I'm at this party and all the adults are drinking and gossiping about the family that aren't there. All the kids are running around in the backyard. Luis asks if I want to go play Pirates of the Caribbean and I say Hell yes, I do, but let me eat some of the fruit platter first to prevent scurvy.

Luis and I are running around outside with all the kids, having a great time. Janis's daughter isn't running around with all the rest of us, though. She is sitting at a little table playing with colored clay. I notice that she isn't an amateur at it, either. She is making some pretty cool stuff, like a snail, a bird, and a bear. Not bad for a six-year old.

I sit down and she pushes some clay at me and orders me to "Make something." She goes on to boast that she can make all the animals that it shows on the box the clay came in. I am impressed, and decide to try my hand at making the turtle. I spend at least ten minutes just trying to get the shell right. I settle for what I've got, and I show it to her.

"It's not as good as the one on the book." I say apologetically.

"No, it's not. It's even better!" she says with awe in her voice.

Her name is Sofia, which is Greek for wisdom. She can speak English, Spanish, and Greek. With credentials like that, how can I argue with her when she says my turtle shell is great?

I give my turtle a head, but no tail. I also give him only three legs, so that he'll have an excuse for being so slow.

I have no real reason for not giving him a tail. But to be honest, I never saw much point in a turtle having a tail. I've never seen a turtle wag it's tail to show that it's happy. Of course, I may have just never seen a happy turtle.

...And Sometimes They Don't

In their backyard is a swing set, or as I call it, a human-pendulum-of-certain-disaster set. If ever there was a piece of playground equipment that could turn children into deadly weapons, this was it.

I can imagine the person who designed the first swing set: "I want the children to feel happy and free, like those wrecking balls that are used to demolish buildings."

I guess it is also the best piece of equipment to teach children certain principles of physics.

I was standing between the two swings of the swing set talking to my little cousins who were swinging happily and freely, when my older brother Miguel's daughter toddles up. She's about a year and half old. I'm a bit concerned, but she stops short of the swing's death radius and seems content with just watching.

Her name is Anastasia, but with a weird spelling that I can't recall at the moment. She is often called Anya for short.

Anya decides to step directly into the path of one of the oncoming swings.

Time does one of those stopping moments.

It's like the preview for Spider-Man 2. My sibling-sense goes off, and a flash of options runs through my head.

I'll have to prevent her from being hit. If I step in front of the swing and try to stop it, then I'll definitely get hit myself and also possibly hurt the boy in the swing.

If I grab the ropes of the swing to try to alter/stop the boy's trajectory, the swing will then veer to it's right and possibly hit the girl swinging next to him. Again, the boy may be hurt and Anya, if she keeps moving forward will probably still get hit.

Decisions, decisions.

The swing at my left is almost at it's nadir which milliseconds after passing will bring it crashing into my tiny niece.

(My niece doesn't get hit. I'm only mentioning that now because you looked worried.)

I dive forward, directly at Anya. I essentially tackle her, but I reach my arms out and grab her, cradling her into my chest. Having her thus secured, I twist in mid-air to my left. Because of the extreme angle, my swinging cousin goes almost completely over me.

Almost.

It doesn't go quite like the Spider-Man 2 preview, and I fail to get completely under the lethal arc of the swing. I receive a glancing blow to the ribs from my swinging cousin . I then land almost perfectly flat on my right side with a resounding THUD!

Anya just looks at me with a puzzled expression on her face. I wait for her to start crying, but she doesn't. "That was not a good idea, Anya." I scold her. "And don't expect me to do that every time."

I let her go, and she toddles off. I got up and started brushing off the mud and the grass that had just become part of my outfit.

My cousins on the swing set are just staring with their eyes bugging out of their heads because of what just happened. The cousin that had struck me was fine. His name is Alex, which I assume is after Alexander the Great. Another Greek thing. Fortunately, Alex had only hit me with his foot. Yeah, real lucky.

Anya's middle name is May. She was born in the month of June. I was born in the month of May. My middle name is not June. My middle name is Bryce, which means "swift." Or "speckled," depending on whom you ask.

But what's in a name?