blogs
My Little Sports Fan
My son had a date last week with a married woman.
He's 5 and she's a shade over 59, with big blue eyes and highlighted hair. More importantly, she gets the VERSUS channel.
We don’t.
VERSUS was broadcasting the Stanley Cup finals between some penguins from some city north of the equator and some other team with what would seem to be an avian moniker. I don’t remember their names.
But my son does. He is a veritable font of sports trivia at the tender age of 5. Each morning, he arrays the Sports section alongside his Honeycombs so he can read the box scores and rattle off various stats from the previous evening’s game. (This pursuit can present somewhat of a challenge at preschool when the teachers cover the art table with pages from the sports section. Instead of focusing on the project of the day, he’s busy scrutinizing the small type.)
I always figured that one day, my child would start talking about something of which I knew nothing. I just didn’t expect that to happen before he’d started elementary school.
Luckily, he is generous enough to still attempt to involve me, querying me about my team preferences.
Him: Mama, who do you want to win?
Me: Who’s playing?
A year and a half ago, he couldn’t care one way or the other about balls, be they designated for soccer, basketball, baseball or any other sport. Now we have one of those plastic storage bins outside crammed with every kind of athletic equipment imaginable.
Last spring, I signed him up at the YMCA for Rookie Sports, a gentle introduction for wee ones to the fine points of soccer, basketball and baseball. At the time, he was more interested in dribbling juice out of the side of his mouth than applying that verb to a basketball.
If he takes after me, coordination is not his strong suit. I figured he could use all the help he could get in the athletics department.
I was wrong.
The boy’s got talent. At least that’s what my husband said. And he should know because he just finished up his inaugural season as a Capital Area Soccer League (CASL) assistant coach for our son’s team.
As assistant coach, it was my husband’s job to rally the troops and put them through their soccer paces. When he told the kids to run right, they ran left. When he told them to charge the goal, they headed in the opposite direction.
Once, two players decided they were hungry and left the field to beg treats from their parents -- in the middle of a game.
Not our son, Aviv. He was the epitome of concentration. He never got tired. And did I mention he scored and scored and scored again?
Soccer ended a few weeks ago. Now it was time to get back to hockey.
I thought he’d be devastated when the Carolina Hurricanes didn’t make the play-offs. At the very least, I figured his hockey obsession would abate until the Canes’ next season. No such luck. He simply became an avid follower of all of the hockey teams competing for the Stanley Cup.
His plan was foiled when he realized we don’t get the cable channel that broadcasts the playoff games.
Aviv took matters into his own hands, calling close family friends whose fervor for the Canes matches his and requesting a “playdate.”
What that meant was he got to thumb his nose at his usual bedtime (7:30 p.m.) to watch hockey on their hi-def television. Picture his 4-foot body enveloped in one of those cushy recliners that vibrate courtesy of a subwoofer buried deep inside the chair and sport a convenient cupholder for cold beer or cold milk in a sippy cup, depending upon the inhabitant of said recliner.
The pre-game hoopla began with Aviv donning rollerblades and kneepads as he whacked pucks at his hosts’ garage door. His date’s husband tried to block them with a broomstick.
Watching the Pittsburgh Penguins face off against the Detroit Red Wings, he acted as knowledgeable as any sports nut five times his age.
‘Nice play!” he’d yell out. Sometimes he’d call a penalty or rebuke a player: “That was hooking!”
But he also acted like the little kid he is, bouncing in his chair like it was a trampoline.
He happily clomped downstairs to munch on some cookies while my husband stayed upstairs, unwilling to miss any action. Suddenly, the Red Wings scored.
Aviv and his playdate had to watch the replay on TV.
Bonnie appears every Monday on TriangleMom2Mom.
Bonnie Rochman
Bonnie is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Monday.
She lives in Raleigh and has written for
The News & Observer since 1998. She has covered political unrest in
the Middle East and chronicled the experiences of entrepreneurs in
Vietnam, but that was long before her new bosses -- there are three of
them, one more demanding than the next -- presenting her with her most
challenging assignment to date: juggling the needs and perceived wants
of boy/girl preschoolers and their baby sister.
Bonnie also writes kids music reviews for TriangleMom2Mom.
My son had a date last week with a married woman.
He's 5 and she's a shade over 59, with big blue eyes and highlighted hair. More importantly, she gets the VERSUS channel.
We don’t.
VERSUS was broadcasting the Stanley Cup finals between some penguins from some city north of the equator and some other team with what would seem to be an avian moniker. I don’t remember their names.
But my son does. He is a veritable font of sports trivia at the tender age of 5. Each morning, he arrays the Sports section alongside his Honeycombs so he can read the box scores and rattle off various stats from the previous evening’s game. (This pursuit can present somewhat of a challenge at preschool when the teachers cover the art table with pages from the sports section. Instead of focusing on the project of the day, he’s busy scrutinizing the small type.)
I always figured that one day, my child would start talking about something of which I knew nothing. I just didn’t expect that to happen before he’d started elementary school.
Luckily, he is generous enough to still attempt to involve me, querying me about my team preferences.
Him: Mama, who do you want to win?
Me: Who’s playing?
A year and a half ago, he couldn’t care one way or the other about balls, be they designated for soccer, basketball, baseball or any other sport. Now we have one of those plastic storage bins outside crammed with every kind of athletic equipment imaginable.
Last spring, I signed him up at the YMCA for Rookie Sports, a gentle introduction for wee ones to the fine points of soccer, basketball and baseball. At the time, he was more interested in dribbling juice out of the side of his mouth than applying that verb to a basketball.
If he takes after me, coordination is not his strong suit. I figured he could use all the help he could get in the athletics department.
I was wrong.
The boy’s got talent. At least that’s what my husband said. And he should know because he just finished up his inaugural season as a Capital Area Soccer League (CASL) assistant coach for our son’s team.
As assistant coach, it was my husband’s job to rally the troops and put them through their soccer paces. When he told the kids to run right, they ran left. When he told them to charge the goal, they headed in the opposite direction.
Once, two players decided they were hungry and left the field to beg treats from their parents -- in the middle of a game.
Not our son, Aviv. He was the epitome of concentration. He never got tired. And did I mention he scored and scored and scored again?
Soccer ended a few weeks ago. Now it was time to get back to hockey.
I thought he’d be devastated when the Carolina Hurricanes didn’t make the play-offs. At the very least, I figured his hockey obsession would abate until the Canes’ next season. No such luck. He simply became an avid follower of all of the hockey teams competing for the Stanley Cup.
His plan was foiled when he realized we don’t get the cable channel that broadcasts the playoff games.
Aviv took matters into his own hands, calling close family friends whose fervor for the Canes matches his and requesting a “playdate.”
What that meant was he got to thumb his nose at his usual bedtime (7:30 p.m.) to watch hockey on their hi-def television. Picture his 4-foot body enveloped in one of those cushy recliners that vibrate courtesy of a subwoofer buried deep inside the chair and sport a convenient cupholder for cold beer or cold milk in a sippy cup, depending upon the inhabitant of said recliner.
The pre-game hoopla began with Aviv donning rollerblades and kneepads as he whacked pucks at his hosts’ garage door. His date’s husband tried to block them with a broomstick.
Watching the Pittsburgh Penguins face off against the Detroit Red Wings, he acted as knowledgeable as any sports nut five times his age.
‘Nice play!” he’d yell out. Sometimes he’d call a penalty or rebuke a player: “That was hooking!”
But he also acted like the little kid he is, bouncing in his chair like it was a trampoline.
He happily clomped downstairs to munch on some cookies while my husband stayed upstairs, unwilling to miss any action. Suddenly, the Red Wings scored.
Aviv and his playdate had to watch the replay on TV.
Bonnie appears every Monday on TriangleMom2Mom.
Bonnie Rochman
Bonnie is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Monday.
She lives in Raleigh and has written for The News & Observer since 1998. She has covered political unrest in the Middle East and chronicled the experiences of entrepreneurs in Vietnam, but that was long before her new bosses -- there are three of them, one more demanding than the next -- presenting her with her most challenging assignment to date: juggling the needs and perceived wants of boy/girl preschoolers and their baby sister.
Bonnie also writes kids music reviews for TriangleMom2Mom.
Comments
Aviv sounds delightful! Hope he continues his playdates with both sexes, any marital status, and all ages, and has a lifetime of female friends throughout his life. Interests know no bounds, age or otherwise.
I love it! Reminds me of my son. His first grade teacher was new to the Triangle and swore that my son made it his personal mission to acquaint her with the Wolfpack, Tarheels and Blue Devils and ensure that she knew which one went with which school.
The disparity in concentration is rampant in early childhood sports. I remember a kid running in from center field in the middle of practice, pulling on the coach's shirt and saying, "When are we going to get our outfits?"
The scary part about your youngun reading the sports page is that sometimes there are things there that you would rather not discuss. During the Kobe Bryant debacle, my son curiously asked me, "What is sexual assault?" Maybe we can request the sports page in a G-rated version!
oh yes. kobe bryant. you know, we had friends who wanted to name their child kobi, a hebrew name. they decided against it because of mr. bryant's notoriety.