Three Cheers

Thunder, thunderation!
We're the Comet delegation!
When we fight with determination!
We...create...a big sensation!

"Justice is an outgoing and helpful child," reads her Department of Family Services bio sheet, the sales brochure DFS and the adoption agencies shop around when they're trying to place an older child into an adoptive home. "She enjoys singing and dancing and likes to make up cheerleading dances."

And if you believe that, kiddos, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn.

Before Justice got here, we took one look at that promising paragraph from the DFS spin masters and assumed we'd be getting all-star cheerleading peformances every night. There we'd be, naively happy Dad and Daddy snuggled cozily on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn on our laps, while J1 and J2, matching pom-poms in hand, would give us a little of that old-school shake your groove thing that took the mighty Waupaca Comets to two state championships. (Not in my era, of course, but I digress).

Anyhoo, we thought they liked the cheerleading stuff, so before she got here, we even bought the pom-poms. I shit you not. Two pair, hanging in her room, one for her and one for her brother, just in case he wanted to join in. (Fair warning, we're gay dads, so if Justin wants to join her cheerleading squad, he gets a full blessing from us. And if Justice ever wants to play football and beat the crap out of boys, even better. This is not a house where gender holds you back).

But alas, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Instead of pom-poms and synchronized choreography, we got 45-minute temper tantrums and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Which just goes to show, if you pull a DFS Bio Sheet out of the literature rack on the showroom floor, you're going to want to read between the lines. And then read between the lines between the other lines.

However, nine, going on ten months later, the kids have adjusted to us enough (i.e. enjoy our company enough...Amen) that they'll actually shake, rattle and roll as some of those old war cries come back in boisterous delight; high school relics I haven't sung out loud since ol' Ronnie Reagan was napping his way through two terms of peace, prosperity and Pretty in Pink. 

Justice, Justice, what's your cry?
V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

Justin, Justin, what's your cry?
V-O-T-T-O-N-I!

He gets the spelling a little mixed up, but it always rhymes at the end.

And the third cheer they really enjoy is that old perennial favorite from the bleachers of old Waupaca High:

We're number one!
You're number two!
We're gonna beat the whoopie out of you!

Only, on our team, the kids have mysteriously pluralized "whoopie."

Justin insists (and his sister follows suit) that "we're gonna beat the whoopies out of you."

Apparently, two or more whoopies take the playing field at our house at any given time. And may God have mercy on their souls. These kids can kick a whoopie like nobody's business.

It's been fun teaching the kids these happy songs from my own crazy wonder years. This week, we've been working on the Waupaca Comet Fight Song (which is to say the Notre Dame Victory March with somewhat different words since Ma and Pa Comet were shameless plagiarizers). The J's haven't quite captured the lyric's finer points. They're fairly conversant with "crash those cymbals, beat those drums," but the more noble, "ready Waupaca, standards to bear," leaves them scratching their heads wondering what the hell I'm talking about.

Nonetheless, it's been a fun week in the car, singing "thunder, thunderation, we're the Reisman delegation," and having their happy, chirping little voices singing along, enjoying it, living it...and like a rain cloud lifting, meaning it.

That's a V-O-T-T-O-N-I I'll take any day.