Ok, this is funnier to me than anyone else, but I will share it with you as it has been making me laugh on and off for three days now.

Our son, who is three, is at the stage where playing is everything, but winning…winning is something different. For instance, no matter what place he gets when he crosses the finish line in Mario Cart Wii, he drops the controller, throws his arms triumphantly into the air and proudly proclaims, ‘I win!’

This, of course is greeted by a series of ‘Yeahs!’ And ‘Woo-hoos!’ from my wife and I. He is the happiest kid we have ever met and we want him to stay that way. When he is old enough to read, he’ll figure it out on his own.

So I came home from work three days ago, and went into the bedroom to shed my work attire and get comfortable. I hadn’t even gotten my shirt off when Ty came running into the room to enthusiastically announce to me that, ‘I watch Dodgers all by myself, Daddy.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I turn TV ooonn. (spelled incorrectly to stress the emphasis he used) And then I watch Dodgers all by myself.’

I was a little shocked (and quite frankly very impressed) that he even knew the team’s name. He had never mentioned it before.

Now, I should tell you that from time to time, he has seen me flip on the TV in our bedroom to check the score of the Dodger game. And I have tried to explain the whole baseball thing to him many times. He tells me, ‘Yes, Daddy’ when I ask him if he understands, but I always felt he was just a little too young.

So when he tells me that he is watching the game by himself, I have to admit I was a little skeptical (our cable guide is not THAT user friendly). I laughed it off as his way of wanting to bond with me. We left the room, I turned the TV off and we went about playing with his matchbox cars, Mario Cart, etc. ‘Daddy. Play.’

As is often the case with my wife and me, Ty sort of floats back and forth between us both. ‘Mommy. Play.’ It was her turn and I moved on to other things. Those other things eventually led me back to the bedroom.

As I approach the bedroom door, I heard the faint sound of outdoor crowd applause. I stopped, turned my head to the side to find the source, and then I heard Vin Scully’s voice, ‘Three and two’s the count, bottom of the ninth, runners on first and second, two out.’ What the…?

I walk into the bedroom and lo-and-behold: Ty had planted himself directly onto my pillow, on the far side of the bed. The remote control was in hand and the TV was on the Dodger game. ‘I watch Dodgers all by myself, Daddy,’ he said with a grin. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and then pretended to take a deep interest in the game.

‘… not exactly by himself,’ I heard Valerie say from the closet (four feet away). He was far from alone, but in his mind he was in-charge and watchin’ the game…

I giggled like a child and jumped on the bed with him to savor this precious father, son (and mother – four feet away) moment. He pretended not to see me (as he was so-very-interested in the game). I stared at him until he broke a smile – but not his feigned interest in the game. He stared at the TV and in a straight face simply stated, ‘I watch Dodgers all by myself…with Daddy.’

I was giddy. I was strangely proud. I tickled the hell out of him and then we returned to the game. ‘What’s the score buddy?’ I glanced at the screen – our boys in blue were leading 2-0.

‘Nine, ‘he tells me.

‘Nine, Daddy. The score is nine.’

Classic.

It’s not the destination, but the journey. In the end, we all win.

The sun was setting slowly in the summer sky. I hit the gas and breezed through the orange stoplight. Horns echoed behind me on both sides. The screech of my tires was in perfect harmony with the scream of the woman I zipped past as I rounded the last turn before my street.

Thirty-two minutes, I said to myself as I dropped the car into “P”. A new record. It was Friday and my son was waiting, wide-eyed on the front porch with a bag of beef jerky and a bottle of orange Gatorade.

‘Hang on, two seconds,’ I muttered as I dashed past him and into the house to drop off my laptop and work bag.

I was back out within two minutes. Ty was already sitting in his convertible, waiting.

I jumped in and we exchanged anticipating glances. He hit the gas, the engine whizzed and we took off. Both of our faces immediately reclaimed lost smiles. Happiness set in.

I LIVE for these moments.

It was a typical California evening: 80 degrees, warm breeze laden with the scent of jasmine and several other flower varietals as we passed house after house bursting with blooms and color. The palm trees swayed to and fro like the watch of a well trained hypnotist. It set the mind at ease in a way only thought imaginable in a dream.

Ty suddenly yanked the wheel hard-right and pulled up onto the sidewalk. We both laughed and he continued down the sidewalk. We roared past driveway, then yard, driveway…narrowly missing sprinkler heads and a small dog. An old couple saw us coming from down the path and moved into the street to avoid our car. Ty and I casually waived and said ‘hello’ as we cruised past them on the sidewalk.

We rounded another corner and he skidded the car directly into a fence. Leaves flew high into the air and the Gatorade I had just sipped shot out into a fine orange mist. He giggled uncontrollably. Suddenly, he hopped out of the car, grabbed a handful of flowers and then back into the car.

‘For mommy,’ he said. And we took off again.

Ten minutes later, the sun had officially set and we were left with an artificial sky – the kind of thing you see in photos that have been touched up to sell vacations on islands. Our pleasure cruise was coming to an end.

‘We’d better turn around, buddy.’

He looked at me with eyes like I had just sold all of his toys…’OK, daddy.’

He pulled the car around and we crept back home – past freshly picked flower stems, the old couple and a now-barking dog. I crossed my arms behind me and took a deep breath.

My son had just turned 3 years old and I knew that times like these would eventually fade into distant memories. Memories that would be severely trumped by gas-powered cars, borrowing Daddy’s keys and a scary little thing called a drivers license. I shuttered.

Then I looked at Ty and his cartoon-sized smile. He glanced back at me and I knew at that moment that his memories of these times would stick with him for the rest of his life. They would sit in the back of his mind, but not too far out of reach – where he could grab them any time he wanted and re-live the moments in perfect detail: the smells, the sounds…the laughter, the smiles.

Another deep breath.

A smile.

I LIVE for these moments.

-Dave