Soccering

It's come time for our little Squirt to engage in her first athletic oriented activity.  Based on our only experience with "soccer," we've positioned the bar quite low.  As you can see below, our little man set the stage for soccer in our family.  He DID enjoy himself, but not for any reasons have to do with the actual sport. After two seasons of signing him up merely for the entertainment value, we called it quits.  With no hesitation.

Squirt's turn.  Last week our family pathetically made our way across the field to the masses of little soccer playing people.  Dude was whining that we weren't going to the park, Tim and I were arguing about what field we were supposed to be walking toward, Enzo was pooping as we walked, and Squirt just wanted to have a snack.  Which we hadn't thought to bring.  We didn't even bring her water bottle.  Parents of the year right?  We did find the field, we did send Dude to a playground alone and we convinced Squirt that if she played soccer, we would give her as many treats as her stomach could hold when we got home.  That half worked.  She kicked her ball around during practice and held firmly to Tim's pant leg the entire game, only one pretty blue eye visible to onlookers. When Tim managed to pry her off, she would simply sit down and bury her face in her hands.  There were two significant episodes of over dramatic tears.  Valiant effort for week #1.   

Lucky for me, Tim has been out of town for a guy's racing weekend, so I was on my own for today, week #2.  This Mama refused to run on the field with her while she pulled my pants down for all to see, so we had a long hard talk about expectations for soccer.  And I might have purchased a sugary Starbucks pumpkin cookie as a continual bribe for the hour long adventure.  It worked like a frickin' charm.  My daughter ran up and down that field, she SCORED a goal from the mid line, she only clung to the coaches hand for 4 minutes, and all of that only required half of the pumpkin cookie as bribery.  She was a new woman out there.  All the kids were.  It helps that we have a great coach who makes them giggle.  I was very proud of our little soccer lady and will no longer dread the remainder of the season.  Below are reminders of week #1's antics.

 Started out with a bang.  I believe we're playing Peek-a-boo with our friend Brinley, who is also on our team.  Anders, the son of our new babysitter, is also soccering with us.  

 The ball made for a rather convenient seat when we felt the stubborn bug come upon us. 

 I caught her playing soccer!  It wasn't a consistent theme that week, but today was FULL of soccer playing.  

 We hadn't quite yet mastered the "no hands" rule.  It's a tough one.

 The two highlights of week #1.  Post game snack and playground time.  

 
We'll do an end of season recap when our amateur turns Mia Hamm.