How Gil Arenas Celebrates His Kid's B-Day

From Gilbert's latest NBA.com blog post, comparing Caron Butler's lavish birthday party to Gilbert's son's birthday party:

My son’s birthday party was a different story.

That was the bomb. I spent a total of $30.

I went to Safeway and bought him a nice little cake, and then I went to 31 Flavors and bought me a cake. I needed a little ice cream cake of my own.

Then I had Doritos in the house, and the milk and orange juice in the house. So snacks and beverages were covered.

Then I bought two lollipops, because if my son has a lollipop my daughter would want one too.

Then I bought a balloon without the string, because I couldn’t find somebody to put the string in.

And I bought one candle.

While we were singing “Happy Birthday,” my daughter was singing, “Happy Birthday to me,” even though it was her brother’s birthday.

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.”

I have a big deejay booth downstairs in my house and we had a lot of fun. I played music and they danced and they spilled and they ate everything.

I have to seriously consider that for Gabe's upcoming 2nd birthday. Hey, Gil: Want to make an appearance?

-- D.S.

Your Kid Will Laugh At Your "Blog"

Jason Fry -- a classic Varsity Dad and proprietor of Faith and Fear in Flushing (the best Mets blog around) -- also doubles as an outstanding columnist for the Wall Street Journal during his days.

He has a must-read column about how the future of technology relates to parenting. It's not about sports, per se, but you can see the sports implications.

You will tell your kid stories about "Too Late For This Edition" sports scores in the newspaper or clicking "refresh" on your ESPN.com scoreboard page or even the way you do your Yahoo fantasy league draft, and your kid will laugh at you -- if he even understands what you're talking about.

Remember how your grandparents could remember life before TV, and you thought that was unfathomable? That will seem quaint by comparison to how your kids see your life with technology now.

-- D.S.

March Momness: Moms Out-Picks Sons in NCAA Brackets

So I just posted on the DanShanoff.com blog about how my wife is having a stellar run of predictions -- she is currently tied for 8th out of 695 participants in my Daily Quickie Readers tournament challenge group.

Gabe is not faring nearly as well, and it's partially my fault. Last year, Gabe finished in the Top 10 out of more than 1,000 participants in my DQR group. His mom made the picks in Gabe's name... he just got all the credit!

This year, we tried something new: In each first-round pairing, I asked Gabe which team he preferred -- knowing the school names would be less meaningful than their nicknames (many of which are familiar to him, like animal names), I used nicknames to ask him.

For the crazy options, like the 1-seeds, I picked for him. I wasn't about to let him pick the Mount St. Mary's "Mountaineers" over the "Tar Heels."

He is currently tanked out in the bottom 20th percentile -- and it's my fault. Even though Gabe didn't get a ton of first-round picks right, I was responsible for picking his bracket after Round One: And I did an atrocious job. I would have been better off going with the National Bracket. I would have been better off letting his mom make his picks, like she did a year ago.

Instead, I totally obliterated his bracket. I hope his mother will forgive me.

Meanwhile, speaking of moms, my own mother -- who usually gets some guidance from my picks and ends up regretting it -- went away from my picks this year. Now she is in 2nd place overall out of nearly 90 people in her pool.

It's obviously March Momness.

Varsity Kid in the Wall Street Journal

OK, so it was my column in the Wall Street Journal, so I had the flexibility to make a gratuitous reference to Gabe's insanely good record with NCAA Tournament picks:

2006: Gabe finished in the 30s out of more than 10,000 participants in my ESPN.com Daily Quickie Readers pool group through the old column. (And he was still in the womb!)

2007: Gabe finished in the Top 10 out of more than 1,000 participants in my ESPN.com Daily Quickie Readers pool group through the DanShanoff.com blog. (And he wasn't even ONE!)

Of course, his mom (making his picks for him and the true NCAA Tournament bracket savant of the family) was picking Florida to win, which helps. Not sure how it'll go this year.

The good news (or maybe bad news) is that this year, I'm going to walk Gabe through the pairings and let him declare his own picks.

He's almost 2. Parents with kids this age (or who had kids this age know), his answers to questions are highly suggestible based on the way you ask the question.

Here's the question: So do I give him the choice between school names (which he won't possibly know or understand) or team nicknames (which, for many, he will)?

I'm leaning toward nicknames, but picking your bracket based on nicknames seems awfully "Duane from What's Happening picks NFL games based on helmet logos" for my tastes.

-- D.S.

Congrats to Suzy Kolber: Varsity Mom!

Huge congrats to Suzy Kolber, who had a girl, Kellyn, on Wednesday. "Kellyn Kolber" has a very nice alliterative ring to it.

I'm not always the biggest fan of alternative spellings, but "Kellen" would be a boys' name (not to mention raise questions whether she was naming the kid after Kellen Winslow II).

Of course, the birth begs the question whether I should start the spin-off blog: Nursing Suzy Kolber. (What do you think, KSK Mafia?)