Everyone warned us about the intensely hot and humid Toronto summers. But this has been one of the most beautiful summers we've ever seen. It's been about high 70's almost the entire time and lots of sunshine. It rains about once a week for a short period, just enough to keep the grass green. But the weather here has been amazing. Here are some photos I took during some of my runs. I like to run beside the Humber river because it passes right by our house.
So apparently, we are raising the energizer bunny. Over the course of almost a year, Axel has slowly become more and more obsessed with soccer, and has basically lost all interest in anything that doesn't involve kicking a round object into a net as hard as he can. The only people we've found that can keep up with his energy are his cousins Elise and Eliana who are 11 and 13 (no surprise, they're practically junior national soccer champions), and our friends' 8 and 10 year old boys. So basically, big kids.
He wakes up, eats breakfast, watches a couple of cartoons, then at about 7:45 a.m. it's game time. That goes on until about 7:45 p.m. when we have to bribe him by any means possible to come inside and take a bath and go to bed.
So take this amount of energy, couple it with us moving to a new country where we have no friends to distract us even momentarily from the soccer, and add into that me home full time with Axel all summer long and you get this:
So I counted down the days until the end of June when school would be out in Toronto and summer camps start! I decided to put him into a half day soccer camp (obviously), hoping that if he played all morning long that he'd be all soccered-out by he time he came home and would be ready for a nap. Ha ha, novice me! But apparently, there are no real soccer camps for 4 year olds. Well, there are, but they aren't soccer boot camps, which my son needs. He doesn't want to play "baby soccer" where it's all non-competitive and all you do is try to hit a bright cone with the ball, (which I am all for, by the way), but he was absolutely insistent that he play real big boy soccer. He wants fierce sprinting, and falling, and playing until he drips sweat and mud. And goals. Lots and lots of goals.
So I lied. I told the soccer camp that he was 5 and figured he'd just have to hang with the big boys. The first couple of days were rough. He was obviously the littlest camper, and there was only one other 5 year old at the whole camp! So basically, everyone else was between 6 and 12 years old. He'd come home complaining that he never got to score and couldn't run faster than the big kids. But I'm proud of him, he stuck it out for three weeks. And towards the end, he started to learn a lot, score goals against the big kids, and even made friends. I spied in on them once during a scrimmage and I couldn't believe how little he looked. All the kids were playing together, and then there was little 4 year old Axel playing with some big 6 to 12 year olds! When the ball wasn't in his part of the field, he'd go up to a big kid and start to get them to wrestle with him. I was so proud of him for not being intimidated and how well he made friends with everyone. On his last day, all the big kids yelled goodbye and gave him high-fives. Pretty dang cute.
Since then, I decided to put him in a camp with kids his own age. Really, it was mostly because I didn't like the language influence the older kids had on him. Some of them used language that we didn't want him exposed to this young. We had several good talks with him about it. We explained that the words that come out of your mouth are very important. They should be always be used to be kind and to love other people. He seemed to take it to heart and understand. But now he's in an age appropriate sports camp. It's a bit boring for him because he wants to play the real sport, not just a rendition of the sport made easier for 4 year olds. But he's having fun and making friends.
But just those 3 hours every morning help me regain my sanity, and even prepare myself for an entire afternoon of playing with the energizer bunny. Oh, and that whole idea that maybe playing soccer or sports all morning might tire him out and get us off the hook from having to play at home....rubbish. He's somehow more pumped up and ready to go once he gets home.
At Least he still naps. Which is another funny story. Johan couldn't handle how active Axel was so late at night and wanted him to go to bed earlier, so he told me I needed to take away his nap. So I did, and Axel started going to bed at 6:00 p.m. And I still looked like the beat down mom in the picture above. But then during the weekends, after an entire day of Axel and no nap break for us, Johan could barely see straight. So he told me to put him down for a nap the next day. So now, we nap.
Our daily life is intense. I'm sure it would be less so if we let him watch more tv or iPad, but we choose not to. His intensity might be in the upper 99th percentile of any child his age, but it's what makes him Axel. And I guess a good thing is that we are all adventurous. Life with Johan was always exciting to begin with. But throw Axel into the mix, and life is still exciting, but now we all get a good workout in the meantime.
