Who plays for Millwall that used to play for Middlesbrough? He was number 18 at Middlesbrough, he played for Middlesbrough a season ago and his name begins with a D?

In case you haven’t guessed already my son asks a lot of questions. When this started I was always on high alert, ready and poised with my brain switched on ready to answer these questions. It was exhausting, still is but I have a lot more experience of it and it’s like anything, the more you do of something the better you get. As time has gone on I can answer many of the questions in my sleep…..in fact I actually do when he wakes me in the night to ask me everything and anything. 

What time is it….I literally know what time it is at any given moment and I can answer this question most of the time without even looking. My body clock is tuned in totally to the time. 

What is 12 add 12 add 12….my mental maths has been given a new lease of life. Over the last few months the times table that I had blocked out seems to have had a revival. I am brilliant at maths questions. My brain is now completely trained for this. 

The science questions I have become adept at. We have lots of science books at home and I have read them with my child so I now know about the planets, the weather, the human body etc etc.

The ones I am struggling with are the football ones…..my son loves football. And he has become similar to one of those commentators that knows every football fact ever. If he isn’t one of 0.012% of players that make it as a footballer he will most definitely be a commentator or a statistician in football.

One day we were looking at the championship league table and I asked him if he could tell me every team in it. He took my phone off me and read out every team from number 1 to number 24. Now if you look at the league table on your phone you will see it displays the badge and in some cases only a few letters of the team name depending on how long that team name is yet he knew them all apart from one. I’m really not sure if he read the words or recognized the badge or it was a bit of both and he just managed to work out the team names but he did it. And he did it quickly. He literally looked at the table and reeled off the names. Impressive for a 5 year old right. 

We had been through a similar phase with car badges though. When he was 3/4 years old. I don’t know how he did it but he learnt many car badges….Astra, BMW, Mazda, Kia, Honda, Hyundai to name a few and for ages when we went out in the car he would shout out the name of the car that was driving past us. He even did this if he was talking, for example a conversation in the car would go like this:

Him: “Where are we going?”

Me: “We just need to go to the post office.”

Him: “What are we BMW doing at the post HYUNDAI office?”

Me: “I need to….Him: “HONDA.” Me: “post something.”

Him: “Can I ASTRA get some KIA sweets?”

And this went on for ages and ages. It did eventually die down and although he still knows the cars he doesn’t shout them out as much. How did he know this?!? And football is the same…..it’s unbelievable how much he knows. He can work out which team goes where in the league table following the weekend matches. And he loves to know the scores. This particular Saturday we had gone to watch our local team but I was also keeping him up to date with the other football scores…the premiership and the championship. Millwall FC were playing Middlesbrough FC (Boro) and Middlesbrough had just gone 2 -1 up so I let him know. And he asked me….

“Who plays for Millwall that used to play for Middlesbrough? He was number 18 at Middlesbrough, he played for Middlesbrough a season ago and his name begins with a D?”

Wow!!!!

Now I knew a bit about football but this was beyond me. The problem was my son wanted me to know the answer. And he wasn’t happy until I gave him the answer. He could ask questions like this all day long. I tried to think of any Middlesbrough player that began with a letter D and the only one I could think of was Djiksteel but he was a current player. Still, I took a chance and named him. My son laughed (and I breathed a sigh of relief) and he said:

 “Noooooo, he’s number 15!! It’s Duncan Watmore. Mummmmm you knew that “

Now I definitely didn’t know that, and if truth be told I was feeling a bit aggrieved. He said it began with a D and so I assumed he meant surname….now if my son had said it begins with a W I might have been in with a chance!!! Who am I kidding I would never have got it but I will never forget it now. It amazes me how he soaks up this information, remembers it and can talk about it at relevant moments. It is without a doubt one of his greatest strengths and I really hope he uses it in the future.

And that is where I have to leave this post for now. I have to go work on my game!!!! And study the league tables, and try to memorize squad numbers before the weekend!!!!!