Conversations: Soccer Madness

The boys have been just too difficult over the past few days. Or maybe its us who haven't been able to "focus and concentrate" on them. Manav has been riding high on this soccer fever to an extent that he seems to be blind and deaf. He only hears and sees what he wants to, he has cut off everything else from his world. This morning over breakfast his incessant chatter earned him a timeout. Arnav meanwhile made use of his airtime

"Papa are you a big boy or a baby?"

"I am a big boy" said Caunteya

"Then why are you using baby plate?" pointing to the quarter plate that I used to serve his toast.

"This is not a baby plate, just a small plate as I am eating a small toast" explained Caunteya

"It is a baby plate. Are you a baby?" continued Arnav and took the offending plate away.

Today I got some more books from the library and they were taking a look at them on way back from school. There is a picture book about three cats without any words on it. Arnav started reading the first page in which three cats are sitting on a tree looking down at fish jumping in the water

"Mommy cat said, go fish. But baby cat didn't go fishing. The fish swam away."

Pretty good story for Arnav to be telling as he hardly pays any attention to books.

Lunch was feeding the kids while they played with their Lego blocks. Arnav said

"Mommy do you like this? This is a big tower with blue, red, yellow and green rectangles"

"I am building one with 22 blocks. That is Joshua and Ms Foley's number. It is 22 pounds" Manav said while eating his 'planets' (thats what they call the whole black olives that they devour everyday. 8 of them, no more, no less)

Somehow was able to put Arnav to nap but Manav just wouldn't. He was too excited with the shin guards, long socks and the general soccer gear. He said

"Thank you Mommy for getting me these"

and some more surprises

"I need to clean up." and actually did, putting the blocks back in the box and some stuff in the playroom as well and then declared

"I am ready for my homework" and except for the lowercase 'F' he did a good job with the matching, counting and writing numbers stopping only now and then to say

"Soccer players do that"

Then he just got bored wearing and removing his cleats and reading the 'L' and 'R' on the shin guards. Just flopped down wherever he was sitting and fell asleep.

I had to wake him up to make it to the game on time. And once on field it was no looking back.

No 10, hardly heard a single word of what the coach was saying. Too much going on.

They were supposed to knock off the cones with the ball, he did that and was pointing 'unknocked' cones to fellow players. Yes, the No. 10 T-shirt which they provided is way too big for him. It fits me perfectly though. We failed to convince Manav that the socks were not supposed to be pulled all the way up but doubled over the shin guard. He chose to wear them like tights.

Arnav played his own match on the side. He insisted on wearing another pair of cleats too big for him but was managing quite fine. Thankfully on Caunteya's insistence I had gotten an extra pair of socks. He chided me for kicking the ball to a car parked there

"Mommy don't hit a car. It will beep. It will go beep beep beep. Would you like that?"