Reagan,
So since golf season started, your mom has her league nights and our rule is, she gets Wednesday to golf, stay out late with her friends, basically stay out past bedtime and have fun. Similarly, I do the same thing on Thursday nights. It’s fun and it works for us. K?
So lately, we’ve been trying to do different things on Wednesdays so we don’t get bored at home. We’ve focused on parks, and have found some cool trails, playgrounds, creek walks and waterfalls. Tonight, we had to pick up flowers for your mom (later in life, you might think this means we secretly got her flowers. I will let you continue to think that). They were at Reagan’s school, so we decided to drive out back and play on his playground for awhile before heading home for dinner.
Scene has been set.
So we’re playing, and at one point, you’re running from one part of the playground to another, and I hear you yell out, “I’m so Sigma.” I heard it but didn’t, in that way where you hear something as you’re dozing off — like there was something but was there? So I kind of forget it and chase after you.
Then, we’re watching a show tonight, and it hits me. In the last day or two, there was this account that hits my feed every so often of this 6th grade teacher explaining what middle school kids are saying. He’s explaining what “You’re a scibity Ohio sigma” means and he kinda acts out skits and is emotive and it’s funny. But in the one I saw, he explains what “sigma” means.
Long and short for you 25 years from now and might not remember what you meant when you said it, the teacher explains it is morphed from some derivative of “alpha”, as in an “alpha male.” With alpha being a social archetype meaning dominant, a “sigma male” would be a quiet observer — basically the opposite of a dominant alpha. So the cool, calm, and collected sigma personality is kind of a quiet-cool guy.
So apply that to 6th grade society and geopolitical implications, blend it up, and now you’re out here throwing out new slang like you’re a big shot somebody in the world.
So you’re laying there watching Spidey and Friends, and I come over and ask you “did you call yourself ‘sigma’ earlier?”
Big smirk.
“Whaaaat?”
“At the playground. Did you say you were ‘sigma’?”
“(silence)”
“Where did you hear “sigma?” Does Eric say that?
“No.”
I went to work. Immediately I ruled out Nash and Miles as suspects because that doesn’t sound like Nash’s vibe and Miles could have caught it from his preschool, I don’t think he has it in him….yet. I was sifting through the evidence when…
“The big kids in my golf camp said we were Team Sigma.”
….golf camp. Of course! The older kids…. Golf camp…. The cool kids team.
💥4th wall Break💥
When I write, usually I try to write each post in as little time as possible. Meaning, I don’t like to start something and come back to it later because the cadence of how I talk changes. The humor changes and it can come out feeling disjointed. That said, sometimes I do have to break away, do something, and come back to continuing my thoughts.
That just happened. I put you both down, and upon discussion of what one thing we learned today, I mentioned that I learned what “sigma” means.
The story continues…
“We’re the Sigma Rizzlers.”
I gut-laugh. Like, unexpected gut-laugh as we’re laying in bed wrapping up. Of course, it being Boys Night, Koen is right there and he thinks the joke is the word “rizzler.” It kind of is, but he isn’t exactly running the controls of the whole operation so I can’t give him that kind of credit.
Koen: “You’re a rizzler!”
More laughter.
Anyway, Reagan. You crack me up too and you’re just becoming this little bro who craves friendships and being cool and looking up to older kids and it’s so fun to watch.
I saw this other post online the other day about how you won’t always have a kid in the backseat excitedly screaming about every excavator he sees forever, and how we should cherish the moments. And I also realize that you’re not the kid who gets excited about every dump truck or piece of machinery like you used to.
Except trains…. still need me to take video of trains every time I find one in the wild.
But you’re growing up, little by little, and watching you is one thing that makes me happier than anything else. Even if that means I have to cheer for a sigma rizzler (“hey siri – make a note to find custom hat company and put “sigma rizzler” on a snapback and sell it on instagram”).
Love you, bud.
Dad
From Ryan to Reagan and Koen 
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