Let the Games Begin

What could possibly cause me to sit like this...outside...in the rain...on a Saturday morning...at 8 am?


Um, Nothing.

Except this:

And this:

I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not athletic. I've never played a team sport, unless you count the spring I spent being the champion player making daisy chains in the outfield of the tee-ball team I somehow landed on when I was about seven. My mom always told me, "If you can't be a jock, be an athletic supporter." Wokka wokka. Really, I've never even been good at that.

But I am a boy mom. And ever since Andrew was born six and a half years ago, I have known my days of avoiding sports altogether were numbered. I may not want to play or watch any sports myself, but that's not to say I don't want my kids to have the valuable experience of playing team sports.

So Andrew and Adam are both playing soccer this spring. Andrew practices and plays on Saturday morning; Adam practices and plays Saturday afternoon. All five of our family members went to the boys' games last week. However, four hours, one Code Brown (thank goodness Libby had a change of clothes in the diaper bag), and six hundred "When is it time for my game?s" from Adam later, Steve and I decided to divide and conquer in the future. This morning it was my turn to attend soccer games while Steve stayed home with the players on the bench.

Andrew's game was first. I laughed so hard I almost cried. The naive generous coach made Andrew goalie right off the bat. Every time the ball came anywhere near the goal, Andrew got so excited he started this strange hopping/skipping around like a crab on crack...as the ball rolled right past him into the goal. (He gets that from me.) That was the case until he somehow blocked a goal with his face. (That's when I quit laughing and started thinking we should really look into chess.) But Andrew got right back in the game after a check of his face and a quick hug. So impressive! And then he resumed his "happy crab" antics for the rest of the game. Good times.

Adam plays with the 3 & 4-year-olds. God bless that coach. What a great young man, herding all those cats preschoolers around the field with such a sense of fun. All I can say about Adam is that this kid is a beast. He stands a head taller than everyone else on the field. He is big for his age but young for his age at the same time. He scored six or seven goals (admittedly one was in the wrong goal) -- just kept running away with the ball. For Adam, soccer is very much an individual sport right now. Clearly "teamwork" will be the theme of many conversations this spring. But, boy, is he ever focused on the field! (He most definitely gets that from his father.)

Happily, by the time Adam's game rolled around, things looked more like this:

Look, Mom! I'm an athletic supporter.