Our Little Socceroo ?

The past few days here have been raining and cold, so Nico and I have contented ourselves staying indoors until the time we pick up Bianca from school. Suddenly, the sun came out today and I just could not resist going outside, even if it was to hang loads of laundry. Strangely, Nico did not was to join me in the backyard. Maybe it was still too cold for him. After all, the sun was out but it was still quite cool and windy 16ºC outside. He preferred to stay in the living room watching kids' videos. I thought he'd he tired of them by now!

So I took decisive action to get him out of his pyjamas and bundle him up well to go for a short ride in the car. On the way out, he decided to bring a big ball, a tiny pocket sized ball, his Elmo toy and his backpack. As I was in no mood to convince him to leave something behind, I just loaded them all in the car. When we got to the park, the playground was closed ... what a bummer! Good thing he had the balls. I took out the bigger ball and he proceeded to the small ramp with the ball in the park and rolled it down. After this, he went chasing for the ball again and repeated the same thing over and over again. It was quite fun just to watch him move around, laughing each time the ball rolled down.

After a few minutes he decided to kick the ball to me, and I kicked it back ofcourse. After a few minutes of this, I was actually taken back to the days as a child when I used to kick the ball around with my brothers back home. I started off kicking the ball with the front of my foot, and then later on with the side of the foot as most soccer players do. It was here that I noticed he was really getting good at kicking the ball back at me. He would say 'Kick to Mommy' and I would respond with 'Kick to Nico'. And then suddenly he said, 'kick around' as he did kick the ball around the place by himself without passing it on to me ... kinda like dribbling I suppose. Maybe he was watching too much World Cup footages on TV with his Dad ?! I was surprised! I've never seem him do this before, with some skill at that. Now I'm no authority on soccer myself, but the fact that he did that all by himself was something to behold!

Could it be just discovered one of his talents or interests? Maybe it was just a fluke or his way of beating the winter blues. Will find out more in the next few weeks.