On Becoming a Soccer Mom

That's me, a real, official, card carrying soccer mom!

Leif started soccer about a week ago through the YMCA for four and five year olds. We signed him up and he couldn't wait to start. It's important that he wear a particular soccer shirt for practice... the one that makes me feel like either a bad sport mom or white trash mom, not sure which.

Leif picked out the shirt from Target one day. It's a sleeveless t-shirt, which sorry, I just can't stand. T-shirts need sleeves. But then it has a soccer ball on it and says, "Winning is the Goal". Which if you are in YMCA soccer, winning is not the goal, playing a being a good sport is. Still I bought the shirt and feel a touch embarrassed by the fact that it is by far and away his favorite shirt.

Anyways, last week the team got together and sat in a circle on the ground. They said their names and their favorite food.

My son fibbed.

He said that his favorite food was "all food!" It would have been more accurate if he declared, "no food".

After the introductions they went around and suggested names for the team. The first kid started out with "Huskies", which in this part of Washington either gives you cheers or jeers. We swing both ways in this region. The next suggestion was for the "horsies" and they gravitated back towards food items which led Leif to suggesting the team be "the Macaroni and Cheeses".

They finally nixed the food names and the kids picked the Horses. Yay horses!

Tonight on the way home Leif admitted he didn't like "The Horses" and if it was alright, he was going to continue to call the team "The Macaroni and Cheeses". Yes, my kid marches to a different drummer.

Skadi then picked it up and said, "how about pepperoni heads!?"

That was my second episode of laughing hilariously tonight.

Of course this resulted in her squealing "pepperoni heads" the whole way home.

Leif loves soccer, he really does. He is set for gear with shin guards and a new soccer ball with his name on it. He looks forward to practice and can't wait for his first game on Thursday.

I wondered if they would scrimage a little today in preparation for the game so the kids had some idea of what they were doing as they stand opposite some other team. Sure enough they split up to 6 kids on each side and scrimmaged. Sans goalies (which kills Leif - that's his favorite position to play at school).

Leif took to soccer... well like a horse I guess! He gets right in the mix and has AB put it, he was more beat up by his own team dogpiling him than the other team.

I wish I would have had a video camera but at one point Leif had the ball and knew he needed to get it turned around and headed towards the other goal. But he was down at the goal his team was defending. So he dribbled the ball out behind the goal, through the parents on the sideline and down the field... all the while with 11 children on his heels following his every step and the coaches yelling, "out of bounds" and "LEIF stop!"

Then they just let him go. And go. And go. Until he tripped over his own feet, fell down and had 11 children land on top of him.

Leif was terribly happy he had made the group of parents watching laugh.

Andy commented something to the effect that we may have laughed when they said the goal was to keep the kids ON the soccer field, but apparently that IS a challenge. Boundaries mean nothing to 4-5 year olds.

Niranjana's grandma at one point commented that this was far more entertaining than watching older kids play soccer! She is right.

We need to work on the listening aspect. I don't know how many times I heard the coach yelling, "Leif, Leif, LEIF stop!"

No ball was left to sit idle in Leif's presence.

We will be working on the listening part.