The Grandfather Clause: Patrick Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking

Kids’ personalities sometimes emerge early, with the graceful flourish of a Monarch butterfly taking wing after squeezing from its cocoon.
Others gestate, leaving everybody guessing about what persona will burst forth from the surly bonds of that scrunched cocoon. Still others take so long to develop they look like an old moth when they flop out (at least that’s what some people say about me).
But enough about butterflies. This is about Patrick. Well, and Avery, the offspring of Patrick’s godparents, Brendan and Erica. Let’s toss Sylvester Stallone into the mix, just for the heckuvit.
Avery’s a good example of a personality that busts out of the cocoon like a kernel of popcorn explodes from olive oil, whether virgin or extra virgin. Unless early appearances are deceiving, his perpetual laugh — it’s usually so much more than a smile that it was a full-fledged guffaw from the get-go.

Unless appearances now are deceiving, he’s a lock to be class clown, at the least, and maybe one of the world’s top stand-up comics. If his glibness matches his smile, he just might get rich selling acting lessons to Al Pacino, or steroids to of A-Rod (oh, WAIT, that's been done).
Patrick also has been a smilin’ child since he popped onto the scene two years ago Aug. 12, although I had trouble figuring out what his occupation might be until recently.
Patrick also has played his preferences close to the vest.
Avery the clown.

Regarding the other grandkids, I’ve known since Vincent was barely on the gravy train that he is a train fanatic, and since Jack was knee-high to a beanstalk that he is a dinosaur stalker, and since Luke became the third wheel on the sibling trike (before the Patrick surprise) that he would love cars, particularly red ones and especially movie “Cars"; and that the lone girl, Amelia, has a thing for sock monkeys (or her mom, Annie, does).
But I didn’t have such an intuition for Patrick for several reasons:
* My schedule has prevented me from being around him as much as I had been the other lads at those young stages.
* Even when I did have time to cruise with the boys, I couldn’t take Patrick along because the terrific trinity didn’t leave any more room in the car for a car seat for the fourth horseman.
* As the caboose on a four-car train, Patrick really didn’t have to come up with his own particular fancy because he’s surrounded by trains and dinosaurs and cars. He has toys galore in several genres
But Kate and I got a glimpse of his present preoccupation a couple of weeks back, just in time for his birthday.
We stopped over to baby-sit, and he grabbed a boxing glove I’d won in a claw machine. (YES, I used to be THATgood at the claw machine, until I went into rehab and broke the habit, kinda-sorta.)
He put that glove on, and handed me another one, challenging me: “Box, box.”
Now, I’ve never been much of a fighter, but I figured I could whip HIS butt, and I did.
But he made it so easy. All I had to do was tap his cheek, and the lad immediately flopped to the floor, eyes closed, as if he were knocked out cold. Then he’d pop up, not unlike Rocky (thought I’d forgot about Stallone, eh?), for more.
Tap. Flop.
Tap. Flop.
Kate tried it, with the same result: Tap. Flop.
Then I figured I’d let him hit me, and I flopped, but not as gracefully, and I was slower popping up.
And that’s why we got him some boxing paraphernalia for his second birthday, Aug. 12. Actually, sometimes I have trouble making up my mind. I had my heart set on a boxer’s robe and shorts, which I found (the outfit includes abs to die for) in an outfit that also includes gloves, but I also found the cutest SpongeBob SquarePants set that includes not only gloves also a punching bag, so I got both. PLUS, Uncle Brendan and Aunt Erica and Cousin Avery got him a boxing set, too.

Now, he’s outfitted to duke it out with all comers: