Go Lions!

checking out my muscles spinning not paying attention you gotta look good to play good

I watched a soccer game yesterday, a real soccer game, where kids were running around the field and kicking the ball. It only took 7 weeks, but they were really playing a game. That's right, we put Annabelle in soccer this spring.

My dad says 3 is too young for kids to enjoy organized sports, and that may be true, but 3 is not too young for me to enjoy kids in organized sports. Here is what I took away from the whole experience:

1. Annabelle is really good at listening to her coach.

2. Annabelle is really good at soccer, and can kick the ball in the air and dribble and make goals.

But despite facts 1 and 2, Annabelle saves the good stuff for home, at practice and games she stays away from the fray, especially after she ended up at the bottom of a pile of three year olds. After that she told us soccer was "too loud" and that she "would rather sit on Papa's lap."

3. During three-year-old soccer, the "game" will stop if a train goes by, or a plane flies overhead.

4. People who ref three-year-old soccer have to be patient and flexible and go with the flo, especially when the "game" leaves one field and moves onto another one. They also have a special spot in Heaven.

5. People who coach three-year-old soccer sometimes have to pick up the goalie and carry them back to the goal when the goalie forgets that he is goalie and starts picking flowers.

6. Our head coach had a super great attitude and whenever we would lose, she would say we really won because we "had the most fun."

7. Somtimes three-year-olds score goals for the other team, but we cheer anyway. Sometimes three-year-olds almost make goals, and I like to call these "goals in my heart." We cheer for those too.

8. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth during three-year-old soccer.

9. Although, most parents are nice, there will be one jerky parent during three-year-old soccer, who gets mad when we lose, despite the fact that his kid was one of the kids who scored a goal for the other team.

10. At the tender age of three, parents of little boys are much harder on their sons and expect them to play and get after them when they don't, whereas parents of little girls, especially their daddies, hold them in their laps if they don't want to get out and mix it up (this was not an Annabelle specific phenomenon--one little girl sat in her dad's lap for the entire season--every practice, every game.) For some reason, this difference made me feel sad for our sons.

In the end, we had a great game. Annabelle actually played and got in the fray and ran around the field and was in the mix when her little friend scored the goal. When he scored the goal, we were all cheering so loudly that he came off the field and got high 5's from all the parents. We ended up winning 2-0. I was so excited it was like I was watching the last game of the '99 Spurs/Knicks championship series and 2006 Rosebowl at the same time. Annabelle ran up to us after the game and said "That was fun!" All the parents made a victory tunnel and the kids from both teams ran through it mutliple times.

We ended the season 1-6. Those goals were the only ones we scored for our team the entire season. But we definitely had the most fun.