Harri's Obsession

When I married Aaron I knew he was obsessed with football, and especially with Hawthorn, but I think that Harri may actually be worse than Aaron is! All day and night, all Harri talks about AFL.  He knows so many players, not just players in Hawthorn and when we are at the games at Aurora I actually have to ask Harri who certain players are, because he knows a lot more than I do!  If you ask him about certain games he is able to tell you the margains and who was injured or who has been reported.

Harri wants to be just like the footy players and is always asking me for a quarter of an orange or lemon, so he can use the skin like a mouthguard!

Last year was the first year that he got really into collecting football cards.  Every Saturday morning Harri takes his pocket money to the newsagency and gets his packet of football cards.  In his bedroom he has them all lined up into teams.


He loves to draw pictures about football and will often draw two different teams competing against each other, complete with the final quarter score.  On Mondays he will sit at the computer for ages with the weekend newspapers and type the scores out for EVERY game on the weekend and print it out!

While Jay is sitting on the computer or his DS or iPod, Harri is constantly kicking a soft footy up and down the hallway.  You always hear him giving commentary as he pretends he is playing against another team.  Last week I put my camera on Noah's wheelchair so he didn't know I was videoing him and this was the result - exactly what he does all day, every day. 

For the last couple of years he has asked us if he could do Auskick.  We looked into it but every Auskick session we found was on a Sunday morning or during school and his school wasn't one that ran it.  It was sad to hear Harri while we were at the games at Aurora say he wishes he could do Auskick and play out on the ground during half time like the other kids.   We decided to look into it this year again, and after a lot of phone calls and emails we finally found out that they were holding their first Saturday Auskick for a long time at Evandale.

Aaron said he was more than happy to drive him out every Saturday morning as he knew how much it would mean to Harri (and there is no way I'm taking Noah out during the frosty winter mornings), and today was the first session.  Luckily we woke up to a lovely sunny morning and no frost, so we all went out to watch his first session.


Harri was so excited and couldn't get out there fast enough to have a kick.

The first part was just drills of kicking and handballing.

We used to think that Harri was the 'full on' one in the family, but Kobe is giving him a huge run for his money.  He started off being more than happy watching him play.

But after 15 minutes or so he kept saying 'me go home please Mummy!'.  When I would say we would go home when Harri had finished, he would burst into tears and do the big two year old tantrum that he is so good at right now.  Aaron, Jay and Kobe had a kick during their break time, so Kobe decided he had enough and kept moving the goal posts.

He would be happy one minute...

and then sulking the next!  Imagine if he were a girl!

Despite Kobe being a pain, Harri had a fantastic morning.  

He played really well and the lady running it said that he could probably teach her how to kick! He was so excited when he came off saying 'did you see my two goals and one behind Mum!!?'.

I'm hoping it will wear off by the time he is a teenager as I'm not too keen on footy injuries, but I have a feeling this is the beginning of life long obsession.