As you can see from how my son is dressed up, it is obvious that our household is riding along the World Cup 2006 hype. Not surprising since we do live in one of the venues, Frankfurt-am-Main. Everywhere you look, signs of fussball loco fans are all over. And what do we see when we pick up our child from the kindergarden? Lots of kids equally loco about the upcoming games. And we couldn't really stop ourselves from thinking it cute when our son came home the first time with his face painted with the German flag. He has been coming home everyday like that since then. It doesn't really matter that I am NOT German. The hype has rubbed off on me, as well.

With the number of people in the city and the shows that we will soon be watching on TV, our habits will surely be affected by all these. And that includes how we behave as parents.

When we go out, we need to be more careful. Since we can't really do crowd control, we need to be more observant parents. For the next month, we can't let him wander around, even within eyesight. With the number of people, it would be easy to lose him. So, a jaunt outside our house means that we have to be physically close to him... at all times.

When at home, we need to make sure that we have enough activities to keep him busy while we watch the games on TV. He is fascinated with football and plays the sport, too. However, the whole game is just way too long for his attention span. I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I just hope that they are enough to keep him entertained until the 8th of July, when the World Cup ends.

Did I miss anything else? What about YOU? What would you do if there was something big happening in your city and this affects your whole lifestyle (even only temporarily) and your parenting? Do let me know. I may need all the help I can get.