Soccer

Yesterday’s soccer game with our kids was, well, interesting. It might have been more fun had more than three people from the opposing team been there.

While our team gathered in rather quickly, the other team they were scheduled to play didn’t so much. For the longest time there was only one player, which eventually became three… to our eight. At first I thought that maybe the coaches would decide on a three to three strategy, however he grabbed our two boys and one of the girls and had them go over to the yellow team to play with them. So we got up and moved to the other side. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest which team they were on, but that they got to play. Once it was time for the game to start, the real trouble began.

It was a sea of blue out on the field, as our team of three and four year olds was basically playing each other. Why? All three of the yellow team members were in full breakdown mode. One of the kids was asked why he didn’t want to go play on his team, to which he responded between sobs, “I don’t have a team!” One didn’t want to leave her mother’s side. And the third was probably too shy to be the only yellow member out there. So the game starts and within two seconds our Logan has the ball, heads straight for the goal and kicks it in. Score!

Eventually all three of the yellow team made their way onto the field, after a little liquid courage in the form of juice packets. One was only out for a few moments but was so distraught after losing the ball she didn’t make it back in for the rest of the game. The other two seemed to require extra liquid courage after each goal was scored. All in all, between the drama and excitement, it was exactly like a grown-up soccer game. Except that Logan and Josh were in it. And they were awesome.

While there are still a few little quirks we need to work on, like not tackling your team members to take the ball away from them but instead work toward getting the ball to the goal together, I think they are really getting the hang of the game. I’m not expecting them to be really into soccer or anything, but I hope they both realize that it isn’t that important who wins or loses in a competition, but rather that they work together as a team and follow through with their commitments.