U.S. Disappointing in World Cup Opener

It took this long for me to calm down long enough to write something about the U.S. Soccer team's opening game against the Czech Republic at this year's World Cup. Although the Czech Republic is a very good team, the U.S. team looked like they were not prepared to play in a world cup game. They brought the same low level of energy into the world cup that had permeated their last few friendly matches leading up to the world cup. Despite a couple bright spots, including Claudio Reyna hitting the post and Landon Donovan's 1:1 effort drawing a yellow card on the Czech defender, the majority of the U.S. play was unenthusiastic and slow. Claudio Reyna is getting older and slower, so when he looks like one of the quickest U.S. players on the field, the team is in trouble. I could continue on like this for a while, but it's too painful. I want to relive the good times. I still distinctly remember the great pride I felt getting up at 2:55am to watch the U.S. take (and maintain) the lead over Portugal in 2002. I'm glad this year's game took place in mid-day as it would have been difficult to justify any loss of sleep to watch it. That being said, the U.S. has a good team, a team that can beat Italy, but only if it plays like the last couple matches of world cup qualifying, not like in the recent friendlies. I'm rooting for the U.S. to beat Italy on my birthday (the day before my first father's day). If they don't, then I start rooting for my more distant heritage, as I'll root Italy on to win the whole thing.

Happy 1st Birthday Mia!!!!

Mia had a great time at her first birthday party. We had heard many stories about 1 year olds' reactions to their first exposure to cake, so we were eager to see how Mia would react. She started off tentatively, checking with Mommy and Daddy to make sure this bright shiny thing was okay to eat. Once she had the go ahead, she picked off some icing and ate it. Apparently she liked it, as her hands went immediately back to the center of the cake. She ate many handfuls of cake and icing and overall had a great time. And even with all of that sugar in her system, she was still able to go to sleep relatively close to her normal time.

Mia's 1st birthday is June 13. It's absolutely amazing to me that a year has gone by since she was born. She's crawling, says "ball" (she can pick out a ball or circle anywhere--in a room, in a book, on a shirt, 2 dimensional, 3 dimensional, partially hidden, etc.), says "mama", "dada" "go", "bye bye" and several other words we can't decipher. We're pretty sure she said "veggie puffs" the other day. She loves her sweet potato puffs. Her preferred mode of tranportation is holding mommy or daddy's hands as she walks around. Otherwise she'll settle for crawling. She has taken several unassisted steps, but she prefers holding onto mommy or daddy.