Soccer

William has been so excited to start soccer...I mean ecstatic!! Never have I had a child so ready to start playing, and yet, the first two games of the soccer season, both games have been canceled due to rain. Then we won't even mention that we will be gone for three weeks! The poor kid is not too happy.

Thankfully, his coach - who happens to be my friend's husband, invited us to play one afternoon. The boys were all very excited to get their jerseys on, especially William.

We walked out to the field.

The coach, Jim, tried to make two teams, with each team having the same number of younger kids (William's age) and older kids (Mikey's age).

Roger didn't want to play, he preferred to take his soccer ball and kick it around as he ran up the hill. He really does not like any contention, and so I think he doesn't like playing competitively. But then I do get confused for half way through, he will run in and play really well, even scoring several goals.

Mikey played really well, which was expected. He was aggressive, but knew when to back off on the younger kids. He also just enjoyed playing.

William was the one that surprised us the most. My experience has been that when my boys are his age, they prefer the sideline to playing, and when they are playing, they rather look for dandelions than run with the pack. Not William. He jumped in and was aggressive, running, kicking, and all with a huge smile on his face. He was not afraid to go up against the older kids and even stole the ball from them several times. Even Jim, his coach, said how impressed he was and how excited he was to have William on the team (like we even keep score and count our wins vs losses).

I'm still playing in a women's indoor soccer league. True indoor soccer is quite different and took a little getting use to, but I am loving it. We play once a week, our games are an hour long. I play forward, which I love and usually make a majority of our team goals. The nice thing about indoor is that you can play the ball off of the wall, which is mostly a second chance for me. Our games are in the evening, and depending on Todd's schedule and the time of my game, I will leave Todd and the boys at home, take the boys with me when Todd's working, or there has been a couple of games that Todd and the boys have come. I actually have been surprised how well the boys do when I have to bring them alone, and of course I love to hear them chant, "Go Mommy". One of the refs will even allow the boys to push the buttons to add points to the scoreboard.

As I was getting ready for our most recent game, Grant saw me getting dressed and asked if he could go. Todd was home so I was just going to go without anyone, but I told Grant to ask Dad. Suddenly all the boys were getting their shoes on. Todd said that while I was still able to play in a league, they should come and support me, plus, he added, I will be sitting through enough of their games later on. The boys' yells were awesome and really motivated me. After scoring 4 of the 6 goals, I thought I had a pretty good game. Then Todd told me he couldn't believe that I missed two really awesome shots. Wow, I'll try harder next time.