Half a year's gone by!

Whoa! It's mid July already! It felt like just yesterday when I was thinking to myself on the first day of July that we've reached the half-year mark of 2013....So much to do, so much not done...the must-do's keep taking priority over the want-to-do's...it's just so exhausting and demotivating for me. But didn't I just go on a holiday to Singapore about 1.5 months ago? Speaking of which I have yet to write about the things we did and the places we went to there. Will I ever write about it? At this juncture, I'm doubtful....

Continuing from the previous post where I mentioned my brother and his family visiting, well, they left last weekend. We ate a lot, we caught up and chatted. We took a family photograph back at my parents' home :) The kids and C had fun together but typical of children, they fought a fair bit too, especially between C and her eight-year-old cousin. They are similar in some ways -- must always win and have the last say, practise tit-for tat, and will make very good lawyers in future. Meanwhile, the cute little five-year-old was happily tailing the two older ones everywhere and joining them in watching tv, playing toys and games on their handheld gadgets. There were times when the two older ones didn't give in to her and let's just say, the house was hardly quiet during those times.

Now that our guests have left, ACE is back to routine. However, the past two days were a little different. Cousin R, six years of age, is one active boy and he visited us on Saturday. He enjoys C's company (and adores 'che che' a lot) although the same cannot be said of C who, apart from Lego and tv, prefers other forms of entertainment at her age. However, they share a common interest in soccer. E who also enjoys the game took out his portable goal posts and set it up in our car porch. Saturday afternoon soccer between one adult and two kids took place. They had fun kicking the mini soccer ball around while the rest of us had fun watching.

C and I recently got ourselves rollerblades. We went over to the skating rink near the PJ Hockey Stadium and tried them out on Sunday evening. The last time I rollerbladed was before E and I were married when we and a couple of friends decided to make it a weekend thing together. I never got to master it then so it was back to the drawing board for me yesterday. I could skate, albeit slowly, and my stunts were limited to ungraceful landings on palms and knees and my saggy bottom. Hee hee hee. C did better although she is also a beginner learner. It's an age thing for sure. When you're young, you're fearless.

These physical activities are the wee beginnings of my desire to get C to be more active physically and for us to be outdoors more. I wish C's school is more supportive of female soccer. They initially discouraged C from joining but after she went and 'argued' her case to the principal, they allowed her to join the after-school practices last year. She was the only girl there. However, being a school that does not seem to emphasise too much on sports, their practices were axed when inter-school football season ended. Just last week, they announced that football practice is back on and C signed up but she changed her mind as again, she is the only girl on the field and didn't think she'd enjoy it this time. As much as I'd like her to be active in some outdoor activity or sport at school, especially in something she has interest in, I decided to let her forego soccer this year, looking at how she didn't gain much from last year's experience, being the only girl there...

World Girls' Ice Hockey Weekend

Last weekend, Malaysia participated in the World Girls' Ice Hockey Weekend event which took place simultaneously in various countries worldwide. Take a look here to see where it was held. Thanks to a good friend of mine who told me about the event (she brought her daughter too), we took C to the Sunway Pyramid ice skating rink to get her first experience skating and 'playing' ice hockey. The event was open to girls age 17 and below.

Registration and waiting in line to get the right-sized t-shirt, skates, helmet, shin guards and hockey stick plus putting them on took about an hour as the turnout was quite good. Upon entering the rink, the coaches lined the girls up and helped them practise moving from one end of the rink to the other. After learning the basic moves and getting used to falling and keeping their balance on the ice, they moved on to holding the hockey sticks while skating and going through simple obstacles. As most of the girls were inexperienced, they did not play a real ice hockey game. After two hours, they took a group photograph and called it a day.

C quite enjoyed it and said she would like to go ice skating again.

C (in blue jeans) waiting for her turn to skate

 

Group photo of all the participants (picture borrowed from here which has more pictures)

Click on the picture to see if you can spot C who had removed her helmet.

 

The event did create some awareness about this sport in Malaysia, and especially for me, I didn't know before this that we have a female ice hockey team :)

 

World Cup fever begins

Eight years ago around this time of the year, I was on one month's medical leave from work after an appendectomy while four to five months pregnant with Caitlin. It was World Cup season. That was one of the only times in my life I watched quite a number of soccer matches.

I wonder if that has anything to do with Caitlin having a strange affinity to kicking balls when she was a toddler and some interest in soccer rather consistently these few years!

While I'm writing this, she is engrossed with the FIFA World Cup 2010 pre-opening concert in South Africa on TV. She wants to stay up to catch the opening match between S. Africa and Mexico. She will be rooting for Mexico and is betting with her grandpa. If she wins the bet, 'kung kung' has to buy her a new toy. If 'kung kung' wins, she's supposed to practise her piano and drums at least thrice a week.

She also knows names like Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea. She likes Manchester United. I don't know why and I doubt she really knows why herself either. Probably following the popular favourite.

And when she gets to secondary school, she says she wants to join the school soccer team.

Like in everything else, I tell her she can do and be anything she is interested in, as long as she works hard at it to be as good as she can.

Caitlin, 6 months old in 2003