World Cup Fever

One of Robert's biggest passions is soccer, otherwise known as "le foot" here in France. I never actually gave a hoot about the sport until introduced to it by Robert in the 2006 World Cup, in which I became almost as obsessed as him in watching those final matches. I vividly remember those games, sitting on the couch in our house in Riverwalk for hours on end, 3 months pregnant with Andrew. It was so much fun. Now that the World Cup is here once again, we are very much into the games, albeit this time round, we have a lot more "noise" going on in the background, and many distractions, including changing diapers, feeding hungry little boys and putting them to bed. There was a big controversy about some actions by a French player, who ended up being booted from the team, but we had to go on the internet to read about it, as Andrew decided to play "you make a better door than window game" while it was being covered on the tv! I am fully supportive of Robert's passion for the World Cup, the good thing about soccer is that it's not on all day long every single Sunday like NFL, and aside from the World Cup which is only every 4 years, the only other soccer he really cares about is the Premier League, and we don't seem to get all that many of those games on our satellite. It actually amazes me to observe how big the game of soccer is, world-wide, and the size of some of those stadiums just blows my mind away.

I like the fact that I was raised in a very sports-oriented household, though to this day, I am quite certain of my father's disappointment with having no boys for whom he could coach American football, baseball or hockey. Regardless of the sport, I cannot help but get seriously into the big games, whether it be the Stanley Cup, the Wimbledon, the Masters, the World Series or the NBA Finals, but usually moreso when it is a "home team or favourite" in the running. Unfortunately we don't get much coverage of the typical American sports here in France, but perhaps that is a good thing, because the actual time we have to watch tv nowadays is seriously limited. And I must admit, I'm already pretty tired from staying up too late watching games already and the tournament is far from over. Growing up, gymnastics ended up being our family's main sport, and even my dad became quite interested in that sport and it seems we spent half our life in the gym, between the three of us girls, and then moved on to coaching gymnastics in our later years. I'm still a little hopeful there may be a third, and female addition to the fam, one that could be enrolled in gymnastics, but perhaps I'm in dreamland as the decision has far from been made!!!

It is our plan to expose our boys to as many sports as possible, assuming they enjoy them. Tennis, skiing, soccer and swimming are probably at the top of the list, largely because of our preference to those sports in addition to the fact they are all widely available here in this area. We know that the benefits of sports to children goes far beyond the physical ones. Teamwork, leadership, discipline, fun...and even a positive influence on self-esteem and academic success. I snapped the photos above in the first game of the World Cup. Robert and Ryan sat down together to tune in, (Andrew was busy with his animals) and it seems Ryan hasn't yet developed his Daddy's interest in soccer, he was far more interested in Daddy's belt!