166. VIDEO: Kickball

An all-new game for Gus is kicking, rather than nose-bopping, a ball.  He rolls the huge beachball along using the top of his nose.  He perfected this trick long ago, and it’s so second nature to him that learning to steadily push the baby carriage — rather than bop the underside of the handle and crash it onto its front — took a few weeks.  Now he’s learning a ball game without any use of his nose, but it’s only taken a few days.

I bring him a cheapo kids’ ball from the grocery store, and he’s immediately intrigued by it.  But when he rolls it with his nose, he gets no click and treat.  What the . . . ?  With nose-bopping apparently off the table, he’s now at a loss; he just stands near the ball and ignores it.  I could wait until he bumbles against it by accident and click that, but I move the process along:  I roll the ball gently against his shin as he stands there.  Click! and treat.  On day one, I do that a few times in maybe five minutes.  On day two, he still tries a few nose-bops, which I ignore.  Again I roll the ball at his feet a few times and click the moment it makes contact.  Again his only reaction is What the . . . ?  But he’s starting to take an interest, sometimes turning toward the ball when I roll it past him.

Day three dawns, and doesn’t he freakin’ flap his foot at the ball All By Himself?!   He instantly gets a click and peppermint for that.  In the next five minutes, he kicks it, albeit feebly and awkwardly, several more times.  When he puts his nose on the ball and then remembers it’s about kicking, he whumps it abortively into his chin, which seems to surprise and annoy him.  Still, good little physics lesson there.

For horses and donkeys, tossing a foot forward is not a very natural movement: their ankles bend mostly backward, and that’s how they kick.  Gus is getting the hang of kicking his foot forward, but often it’s more of a stomping or pawing motion, which can bring his foot down on top of the ball.  At one point, as he’s chasing it rather avidly to kick it, he accidentally steps onto the ball, which makes him trip over it as it rolls under his foot, and he nearly faceplants, landing on both knees with a peeved little grunt.  He quickly jumps back onto his feet, and I apologize and soothe him, and he seems just fine.  Soon he’s chasing and kicking the ball again.

Next — there always has to be a next with a hairy little genius like Gus — I’m shopping for a portable kid’s soccer goal.  Learning to aim the ball and dribble it along in one direction won’t be easy.  Which is precisely why Gus will relish the whole process.