Saturday, October 1, 2011

So It Begins

It's that time of the year when a young boy's thoughts turn to Halloween candy...and soccer. We signed our son up for soccer, and it's go time. Today is the first game.

We went to pick out soccer shoes a few weeks ago. It was a family event! They had LOTs of shoes...and nobody around to help you figure out what shoe. Larry, Zane and I were completely discombobulated. What are turf shoes? How are they different from cleats? Which shoes should we buy? My son was not as stymied as his parents. He knew exactly what he wanted. He marched over and grabbed...a pair of PINK shoes.

Really, son? That's what you pick? I rub the side of my face where that vein starts bulging. The other soccer moms were snickering. We kept throwing black and white shoes in front of him, but he was very firm in his decision...until we found these YELLOW shoes. YELLOW. As in, brighter than the sun YELLOW.

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The picture doesn't really do justice to this color. These YELLOW shoes glow in the dark, without a black light.

First soccer practice, we had to leave the house with two chairs, a canopy, an umbrella, a cooler full of water and gatorade, a soccer outfit, shoes and shin guards. For practice. None of the other parents had a canopy set up. None of the other parents had a cooler. They brought chairs, and a couple of bottles of water. My husband is a big believer in being over prepared. My big thing to remember was a camera.

There are six kids on the team, two girls. Right off the bat, you could tell who had the mad soccer "skillz". The older kids were much more confident. Zane started kicking his ball, and he kept kicking it. We finally caught up to him three fields over. He was kicking in a straight line, if that counts.

The practices have been a huge learning curve for everyone, including the coach. Three year old kids don't know what a pass is, and they don't know what it means to "stop" the ball. They don't know their left from their right yet. Adjustments had to be made. Adjustments also have to be made for the short attention spans. There was a lot of playing in the dirt, poking ant piles, and chasing dragonflies. I promised Larry that I would do a better job of paying attention, but that really depends on the dragonflies.

But now the big day is here. The first soccer game of my son's life. My husband is more psyched than I expected, and I guess that I am excited as well. I just want him to have fun and be a kid...but if he happens to kick the ball into the goal by accident, I am going to do a victory dance.

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4 comments:

  1. How exciting! I still love looking at the photos from many years ago when they all just ran around in clumps, somewhere in the general vicinity of a soccer ball. At least you will be able to pick out Zane's feet in those clusters! Grass picking was always big at our practices...um, even two weeks ago...at 11!!!!!!

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  2. P.s. It is 50 and raining here, and I am pretty sure my daughter is trying to sleep through game time at 10:30...some of us are hoping for thunder!

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  3. I bet the other parents were a little jealous of you guys being so well prepared, I know I would!

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  4. That sounds so exciting! I actually can't wait to become a soccer mom. Like you, if my kid manages to kick the ball, I'll do a happy dance.

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