Hangin' Tough

Casey is preparing to make his stage debut in a children's production of "The Jungle Book." While he was at the rehearsal two nights ago, my cell phone rang and I couldn't quite get to it. When I listened to the message, what I heard was, "Um...hi...um...Casey took a little spill...we're pretty sure that nothing's broken..."

Always a fun thing to hear in relation to your 6-year-old. Luckily, we were only about three blocks away, so Amy raced over like any good concerned parent would. Turns out that while sitting on a table that he shouldn't have been on, Casey fell off and slammed his face into another table. When she texted me a picture, he looked like DeNiro in "Raging Bull."

Once he arrived home, he tried to stop Amy from telling me what had happened, not realizing that I already knew. Ever since, he's tried to hide the true story of his black-eye, not thinking that it sounds manly enough...falling from a table while rehearsing a musical. As we were driving to the library last evening, Casey said to me, "Will you stop telling people how I got my black-eye?" I wasn't sure who I had actually told, so I asked for a clarification. "You keep telling all the people that you know," he said. "What do you want me to tell them?," I asked, "That you got into a fight?"

"Yeah," he said. "Tell them that I was in a fight."

I offered up that we could just tell people that he was in a motorcycle accident, but he felt that we didn't want to oversell it. Of course, always being helpful, Marty altered the story with one tiny little detail...instead of just a fight, Casey got into a fight with WWE star John Cena in his version. Somehow, that met with his little brother's approval.

Enjoying his new tough guy look, I've caught Casey looking at himself in the mirror. This morning, I walked by to find him gazing at himself and saying, "Who are you looking at?" I stopped him and corrected him. "No, no," I said, in my best "Father Knows Best" voice. "You're supposed to say, 'Are you talkin' to me? I don't see no one else here, so you must be talkin' to me." From the other room, Marty yelled, "Is that for real? Are you really supposed to say that?" As I left the bathroom, Casey was practicing his Travis Bickle.

Casey also at one point walked into the room, threw up the old double horns above his head and exclaimed, "Rock-N-Roll!" Apparently a black-eye gives a kid that listens to Allison Krauss and Justin Bieber license to act like he's been hanging out with Slash.

The danger here is that Casey is now enjoying his bad-ass look that he might decide to try to replicate it once he heals. That's just what I need is a kid that wants to perpetually look like Rocky Balboa after 10-rounds. It's not like my kids aren't weird enough as it is.

Unfortunately, Marty is less clear on the concept. Instead of a black-eye, he's shooting for a busted nose. He believes that a bloody nose is a tough guy hallmark. Odd that it's the kid how wants people to believe that he got into a fight with a professional wrestler that I have to worry about less.