Soccer 2012

We weren't thinking straight this year and signed up 3 kids for soccer at the same time. Of course all three are different ages which means 3 practices and 3 games a week. That translates into 4 nights a week of soccer. It's been really fun, but tiring bouncing back and forth from different parks to try and make it all.

Chloe's coach took things seriously and doubled the practice time that everyone else had. They all improved quite a bit. Chloe really likes to play, but now that she is getting older the kids are more competative than they once were. She's a tender hearted little girl. After a game recently she was nearly in tears as she told me that one of her good friends was playing on the other team and she stole the ball from her. I told her that was kind of the point of the game, but she says "I know but I thought we were friends, she shouldn't be taking the ball from me."

Elsie's team improved a lot over the season too and did quite well. Elsie loves to play too. She is fast and has lots of energy which is great for soccer. She has been learning some strategy from her coach that has paid off for the team. Unfortunately i didn't know this. At one of her first games I kept telling her to follow through on the ball and drive it in closer to the goal so they could have more chances to score. She would attack, get the ball and then just kick it forward without having a team mate there to receive it. So after the game I asked her why she kept doing that. She told me she was sorry, but her coach told her to do what she was doing. I guess I need to just let them play. As it turns out, after a few games the team played better together and her efforts started converting into successful plays. I guess they just needed a few games to work on their part of the team strategy that their coach was teaching them. I think she learned a lot from this season.

Rhen surprised us this year. He has always been very timid when we have signed him up for sports. This is the first year he has played soccer and he did really well. The first game he ran out there and scored 3 goals right off. He loves soccer and wasn't timid at all. The problem we had was that he was a ball hog because he was more aggressive than his teammates. We kept having to ask him to slow down and pass it so other kids  had a chance to score too. As a result, now he's not as aggressive because he thinks he was wrong to be like that. We're trying to help him do both. Its fun to watch these little 4 year olds run around and try and take the ball from each other. Often taking the ball from their own team.