Spring Soccer

Both kids started outdoor soccer this spring.

The first two weeks were cold and wet (not full on rain but enough precipitation to be uncomfortable). I kept telling myself “this is why I haven’t let Mallory play soccer…this is why I haven’t let Mallory play soccer”.

But just like the weather – everything has improved each week.

Carson has done great every week – he goes like crazy for 45 minutes and then the last 15 minutes he is uninterested. But while he’s playing, he is so fun to watch. At the risk of bragging, he’s one of the best kids out there – he has no fear and has a natural aggressiveness that his coach says you can’t teach. He knows how to use his body to take the ball away from other kids but unfortunately he doesn’t quite understand that he shouldn’t steal the ball from his teammates. He also needs to work on knowing to keep the ball in bounds and to only kick the ball into the goal. He can “dribble” the ball from one end of the field to the other – usually with the other kids following along – and has a huge grin on his face the whole time. Mallory’s BFF’s sister is on his team and they are ridiculously cute.

Then there is Mallory. The first week she refused to participate and stood on the sidelines clinging to Rick’s leg the whole time (except for when she was in goal with one of her coaches – where she made a couple nice saves). That was neat. But after soccer she told us she wanted soccer shoes. Huh? You seemed to hate soccer this morning and now you want soccer shoes? We made a deal that if she did better the next week – and actually participated – that we’d look into getting her soccer shoes.

It was a soccer miracle. The next week she actually went into the game when her coach told her it was her turn and ran around chasing the action. She never touched the ball but she got in there and that was awesome. Then the next week – she got in there even more and actually scored a goal at the very end! She is really having fun with it now which is good :-)

Here are a bajillion pictures that I took a few weeks ago.