GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

Soccer season is in full swing around here for us. Little Miss is signed up for her first session, and she's been enjoying it.

When my husband came home from her first practice, he proudly talked about how most of the kids had played soccer before, but that she was still the best player. She was so fast that no one could keep up with her. She could steal the ball from the other players, but they couldn't steal it from her - except one boy whose strategy of tripping her to get the ball isn't so legal. She had a great kick and a power shot.

As I prepared for the first game, I was excited to see my little soccer dynamo play. I couldn't wait to see her skills in action. As the game began, I watched her skip around the field, following the ball. She wasn't at the back of the pack. In fact, she wasn't really a part of the pack at all. Her killer instincts? Uhhh, not in existence. Her power shot? I don't think she touched the ball. Fastest player on the field? Not exactly.

Huh. Apparently she doesn't translate well from practice to game. Yet. I still have hope. As the season wore on, it was more of the same. She played a little better, but she still was nowhere near even average on the field. So long as she's having fun though, that's all I care about.

Midway through the season, she finally got a shot (pun intended). She stole the ball from the other team and began racing with it up the field. There was no one in front of her, and she wasn't stopping. I'm sure she couldn't hear her teammates behind her. She shot... she scored!

She was so proud of her very first goal. Or at least, she was until her first teammate reached her, grabbed her by the shoulders and gently shook her while explaining, Little Miss. That was our goal. You just scored a point for the other team!

Oops.

Then we got to a double header on the Saturday - the only Saturday so far - where it was August hot and humid. Mid-90s in both temperature and humidity. Her first game was at noon with the second game at 1:30. The first game went much as most have gone so far this season. By midway through the second game, no one was much interested in playing soccer anymore because it was simply too hot. The kids were wiped out. They laid in the grass to recover. Well, except Little Miss who was still bopping around the soccer field. She scored three goals that game.

Apparently if you can't outplay them, just outlast them!

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The Next Mia Hamm

... is not coming from our family! But they had fun at soccer camp this week.

I signed up for this particular camp because a friend of mine had done it with her daughter (Mister Man's age last summer, and her daughter had enjoyed it. Mister Man can definitely use some organized sports for a number of reasons -- the benefit it has for him for fine motor, the learning to play with other kids, the understanding that it's ok to not be the best and do something because it's fun anyway, etc.

The good news is that they both enjoyed the camp. Since I stretched the truth a bit when saying Little Miss was 3, they were in separate camps. Little Miss went from 9-9:50, and Mister Man went from 10-10:50. While one was doing the camp, the other one would play at the park adjacent to the soccer fields. Someone was thinking when designing this field!

The camps were small. Five children in Mister Man's camp, and seven for Little Miss. She had two instructors, so the ratio was great, and the instructors were really enthusiastic and related well to the kids. I actually looked up last night to see if they offered any more camps this summer, but no such luck (ok, one next week in Buffalo Grove but I'm not driving that far!).

We didn't know anyone in Mister Man's class, and that was ok. Two girls we know were in Little Miss's class, however. One was from her preschool last year -- the one my mom dislikes intensely because of her gorgeous flowing curly hair and the younger daughter of my friend who had recommended it. Anabel enjoyed the class and would regularly call out to her mom "Look at me!" which was really cute. But my poor friend. Bianca absolutely would not go near the soccer field. All week long (ok, except yesterday), my friend came to the soccer fields with her two daughters and tried unsuccessfully to cajole Bianca into doing camp. I felt badly for her, but what can you do?

Little Miss really got it from the get go. She figured out how to stop the balls, on her first try she got the backwards kick thing, and she was fast after the ball when they had races.







She looks tough and like she knows what she's doing, doesn't she? And yes, I know the t-shirt is way too big. They didn't have a choice in sizes for the camp t-shirt. I had her tied up like Daisy Duke for awhile because I was afraid she was going to trip, but she'd have none of it.

Mister Man had a slightly harder time with it. He is not a natural athlete, and he doesn't exactly have a killer instinct. The first day of camp, he flopped on the ground when a boy beat him to the ball in a race because it wasn't fair. (Due to work, I was there only for Tuesday's and today's sessions.) Apparently, my husband forgot to explain that soccer is a game where you're trying to beat the other person. And that you won't always win. Fortunately, he picked up on that part pretty quickly and was fine (mentally) after that.




Not exactly the soccer pictures you'd expect from an expert, but he had fun. It was really great to see him so excited about playing soccer.

And it was pretty neat to see them kicking the ball around together with Daddy refereeing when we got to the fields a few minutes early this morning. We were the only people who played beforehand. Everyone else either showed up late or sat on picnic tables waiting to be called to the field by coaches. I love it when kids have passion.

Interestingly though, when I asked the wee ones at the end of the camp who was sad that camp was over, Mister Man was bummed and wanted to keep going to soccer. Little Miss, on the other hand, had fun at the camp but decided that she was tired of soccer because she "was done with it" -- whatever that means!

My other favorite thing from this week was my discovery on Tuesday. As I mentioned, I could only go to the camp on Tuesday and today, so my husband took them the rest of the time. On Tuesday, I went to put Mister Man's cleats on him just before his session started. He has cleats only because we were at our church rummage sale, and they had some great cleats for $0.75 a pair. They were worn maybe a couple times only.

I never put them on him, however. Take a look at the picture. Ten points to whoever figures out the problem first.



I immediately called my husband to ask if those were the cleats that he'd worn on Monday or if he'd somehow changed things up with the other pair we'd purchased at said rummage sale. Nope, these are the cleats he wore Monday. Poor kid!