The World Cup

The World Cup in England is a very different experience to the World Cup in America. In America, soccer is almost an underground sport, and only the elite few are interested. Cool people like Tim Sparks set their alarms for 3:30 in the morning to go to the one pub in the area who is playing the game and charging a cover. Here every single store has England team paraphernalia displayed, and the pubs all show the games live. People roam the streets wearing England shirts and waving England flags, and people honk their horns when England wins. The excitement is kind of infectious. Just don't make the mistake of calling it "soccer". It's football, got it?

So, yesterday I was invited to some friends' pad for a 5:00 kick-off. We were going to eat tacos and watch the match (not a game, a match!) But I have two kids, and they have two kids, and Abi brought Owen, so there were 5 under-4's competing with the football. And dinner still needed to be made. I spent the first half in the kitchen grating cheese, cutting tomatoes, telling Cerys not to throw sand at her friends and trying to figure out why Addien decided it would be a good time to start preferring mommy to anyone else. Half time came and we served up. I spent the first 20 minutes of the second half trying to get Cerys to sit still long enough to eat, trying to figure out what to feed Addien since the tacos were too spicy for her liking, and trying to get a taco for myself. When I finally sat down with about 20 minutes to go, no one had scored, so I didn't feel like I'd missed too much. I watched for a few minutes with Addien in my lap and then realized that she was chewing on something she shouldn't be and looked to get it out. During that 5-seconds, Crouch scored the first goal of the match. Nice. I got to see it on replay. Mike was sure they would score again, so I settled in to watch again. I watched, was impressed with the fancy footwork, and then Leyton, the 3-year-old of the group, came and asked me a question. I don't remember what he asked, but in that 5 seconds that I made eye-contact with him the second goal was scored by England.

Apparently watching football and being a mom are not compatible activities.