This will be the first Super Bowl Sunday my son might actually sit still and watch the game for a few minutes. (Probably while getting really angry about Beyonce’s lip-syncing LIKE THE REST OF US.) It will be the 28th Super Bowl I can remember watching that doesn’t include my Dolphins. Ugh.

On the other hand, my wife is a 49ers fan – something about a childhood crush on Steve Young – and since I have nothing against this young San Francisco team (and I hate the Ravens), our house is all-in for the red and gold today.

But there’s no arguing that the big game’s biggest personality – aside from the Harbaugh brothers’ HILARIOUS parents and Colin Kaepernick’s HILARIOUS fashion sense – is former murder suspect and possible deer-killer or deer-lover or deer-eater or deer-sniffer (who understands these PEDs?), Ray Lewis.

I’m not a big fan of the guy, but he’s definitely larger-than-life. And sometimes he reminds me of my son.

So before I start drinking I decided to make a quick list of the ways my two-year-old son and an African-American, future Hall of Fame NFL linebacker and murder suspect are alike.

Five Ways Toddlers are Like Ray Lewis

1. They dance like maniacs – I’ve never seen my son rip up any turf at the end of a dance, but he has the herky-jerky thing down pat and I’m pretty sure he’s soiled himself mid-boogie-down, which, frankly, is much more intimidating than whatever Ray Lewis is doing.
2. They are always talking gibberish – There’s no way you can tell me with certainty which of the two said these things:
   • “I ride my bicycle all the time. There’s one thing about my bicycle. I’m riding, I’m riding, I’m riding. And no matter how tired I start to get, it’s never about this pedal I’m pedaling, it’s about the next pedal, and if you can get to that next one, your bike will keep moving.”
   • “I got no poops.”
3. Their screams are blood-curdling – Lewis’s yelp at the end of his dance is powerful, and the pre-game speech he howls his way through is intense, but I would rather line up across from him at the goal line than have to go through another night of my son screaming bloody murder because we won’t let him sleep in our bed. True story.



4. They are human wrecking balls – The only slight difference here is that Ray Lewis usually intends to smash into and tackle the things he smashes into and tackles. My son only intends to smash into maybe about a tenth of the things he smashes into. But still. Ray Lewis’s bruised flesh the day after a game has nothing on my son’s purple-patterned legs after just a few hours of being awake.
5. They were both involved in a man’s death – We all know the unsettling details of Ray Lewis’s brush with law, and yet he continues to roam the gridiron a free man, making millions every year, celebrating with every tackle. Similarly, on September 15th, 2010, at approximately 8:08 in the evening, my son was born, thereby immediately murdering my hopes and dreams, and every year we throw him a party.