“Winning” Stuff

Like I said on Lorelei’s blog, the carnival was more Tobias’ thing than Lorelei’s. Last year I had taken him to the carnival and we went in a pretty serious ride, the Octopus. It is one of those rides where the cars go round and round on an arm, but individually as well and they go up and down too. Well, that started out slow but went faster and faster. He wanted to go on the ride so bad, so, we did, but when it was going faster and faster he wanted to get off the ride so bad… probably even worse than he wanted to get on .

So, this year he was kind of traumatized for rides. Basically he went in the merry-go-round and the bumper cars (with Opa).  The theme this year was winning stuff (junk, that is). They had all these things where you are guaranteed to win something. Basically you buy some piece of crap toy but before you get it your kid gets to catch ducks (see picture), catch balls, pull ropes or something like that. Great fun for him, but not only are the toys junk quality wise, for boys they were primarily weapons. So, we got stuck with like four guns, a light saber, a bowie knife, handcuffs etc. I have to say, Tobias is quite careful with his toys, and some of these toys still work, but as a friend of mine put it: “You pay a lot of money in a short amount of time and you come home with toys that are usually broken within two hours…”, and that pretty much sums it up from a parent’s perspective .

But I have to admit that the joy Tobias had (and still has with these toys) far outweighs the costs…

Kaboutervoetbal

Tobias has reached that age where we should consider organized sports… Well, through one of the soccer clubs in Gouda he has the opportunity to try out soccer. We subscribed him for kaboutervoetbal (literally: gnome soccer), a 10 week program to get to know soccer in an organized setting. Last Saturday was his first time (the third in the series, he could not get in at first but apparently someone did not like it that much and a spot opened up). He did quite well, technically speaking, but more importantly, he enjoyed it thoroughly. I think he was even somewhat proud of himself!

I tried to document some of it and this was my best shot, the one I like most anyway. First they did some simple exercises like driving the ball around cones, kicking and stopping he ball and such. They ended the morning with an actual game. As you can see Tobias was on the Portugal team and they were playing the Netherlands team.

Even though I had to get up early on a Saturday morning (for our measures anyway, it starts at 9), I did enjoy watching my boy having fun!

That same day he also wanted to play (field) hockey with me. We went to a field close to our house and played for a while. I said: “Tobias, what do you like better, soccer or hockey?”. He had to think some and answered: “I like both, I want to do both.”. I said: “Well, Tobias, usually hockey and soccer are at the same time so you have to chose.”. He said: “But papa, I am already a soccer member…” . I guess we’ll try hockey sometime too… and tennis (because that’s what daddy likes ).