Discovering Fatherhood
Reflections on everyday daddy stuff
World Cup Papi
The day has arrived and the world watches to see who will be crowned world champions of futbol. I for one am super excited. I was born in Argentina and was immersed in soccer as a kid. Soccer is a common language that all speak. Rich, poor, depressed, excited, loner or the cool kid—everyone can communicate freely and equally on the field.
I am so sad that the US didn’t make it to the World Cup. There is so much I could say about this but at least one out of my two teams is playing.
As I watched the Argentina vs Iceland game my daughter stared at me in wonder. I can picture the thoughts going through her head:
– Why is papi jumping up and down?
– He is suddenly speaking a lot of Spanish. Huh?
– He just punched the couch pillow. Thats weird.
I tried getting Claire to sit and watch the game with me. “Baby this is an awesome time of the year!” Claire just looked at me as if I were crazy and responds with, “But I wanna watch Paw Patrol”. I shake my head in disappointment and sit her next to me as Iceland attempts to score. I jump off the couch in shock. Claire gets accidentally pushed off the couch and watches me as I yell, “NO!” Claire asks whats wrong. I turn to her and tell her that Iceland has scored and it is now a tied game. “You don’t yell like that at my game, papi.”…Awkward moment.
My hope is that Argentina will go to the finals again. Now that Claire is 5 years old she can really get to see the beauty of the game and enjoy this with me. My plan is to offer her lots of snacks during the games, a little juice and maybe just maybe she will sit through a whole game with me and enjoy herself.
Hopefully I wont knock her off the couch again.
Discovering Fatherhood 