Cory

Michael's gymnastics team meets twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, at the worst possible time, from 5-7pm. Normally during those hours we have dinner and have started moving toward bedtime... Through trial and error (of course, there always must be some error!) we have figured out that the best course of action is for Chris to take Michael to gymnastics and to spend the TWO hours trying to get some work done while watching Mr. Ernesto and Mr. Lu pull, squash and throw Michael's body into awkward positions on unnamed apparatuses (?? apparati?). (Not that the apparati don't have names, we just don't know what they are and while Michael is POSITIVE he does, I don't think the big brown leather thing with the handles on it is called the pomma horse nor are the two bars that are the same height---and parallel---the key bars. But who knows...he does spend 4 hours there every week...)
Anyways, Chris now has class on Thursday evenings so we have elicited occasional help from my family so that Matthew and Joshua don't have to sit still inside Fairland Sports Complex and watch for 2 hours while their big brother gets to jump on the gigantic trampoline in the room below.
Today my Dad, Pepa Tony, came to take Michael to gymnastics. All went well and when they got home at 7:30 the three of us had dinner together while Chris was at class. Joshua was already asleep and Matthew was trying to stay awake.
Michael was devouring his BAT (bacon, avocado, tomato) sandwich and a generous portion of Martha's mac n' cheese while he gave me the run down on the evening's events. After a brief pause to inhale some more food Michael turned to me, gave me the finger and said, "You know what Cory said?"
"No, what?"
"That this is a bad word."
"Well...it is," I said.
"But that's silly, how can that be?" asked Michael.
"Well, I don't know how it came to be that way but it is very rude and impolite to put your finger up like that, on purpose."
"That's silly," Michael confirmed, "it's just a finger!"
"Yeah, it is kind of silly," I agreed. "If you just scratch your nose with your finger it's not bad but if you put it up like that at someone on purpose it's rude, and mean."
pause for digestion of the confirmed knowledge...
"Wow," Michael said, more softly and mostly to himself, "Cory knows so much!"