Soccer

After the first week of soccer was rained out, our kids were raring to go! Judah was on the Timbits soccer team, which is from 2-4 years old. Judah kept running off on his coach, Kennedy. But he wasn't the only one. Judah plays with Marcus, who he knows from Moms and Tots. It was funny to see Ken trying to rein the two boys in – along with his own two daughters. His 20 month-old thought that she should be able to join the team and listened far more intently than most of the other kids. Judah just wanted to kick the ball. Judah tried hard to listen for their passing drill – except they were supposed to stand in one place, which didn't go over so well. He would go grab the ball, bring it back, boot it twice and get another ball. Near the beginning he told Ken, who was from Kenya, “I’m going to get a baby brother, and he’s going to be brown like you.”  I don't think Ken really believed him.

What’s all this follow the leader stuff got to do with soccer anyway? Aren’t we NOT supposed to swarm after the ball but go where it is headed? It was funny to watch swarm soccer for the U6 teams. Aslynn’s team is the Red Fireballs. Appropriate.

Aslynn looked hilarious trying to kick the ball at first when it was stationary; it was like she didn't know what to do with it when it wasn't flying at her at Mach 1 from Micah's foot. She's also one of the smallest kids on her team, along with Elias who is a friend of hers from preschool. It’s funny to see, especially with Aslynn wearing her jersey with shorts underneath (literally).

During the game, Aslynn was holding hands a kid from the other team and “made a deal”.  She followed the crowd very well. I don’t know if she kicked the ball at all during the game, but she got awfully close. This morning she told me she scored 10 goals. I think that a) she didn’t count and b) the ones she did count were during practice. It was awesome watching her try to kick the ball straight and hard at the net. With a few pointers from her coach, she did quite well. She kicked a lot harder than many of the other girls on her team.

Micah scoring in the dying seconds of the second game to tie it up. Micah said, “He told me to just go and score, so I did.” He was referring to his coach, Shawn Wheaton, who was excited to have a superstar on his team. The people organizing soccer this year worked very hard to divide up the teams much more evenly than last year. This meant separating Luke, Micah, and Carter who dominated the field last year, even though they were a grade younger. Micah is on a team without his buddies because, well, he needs to learn how to pass to other people. That is, when his coach isn't telling him to carry the ball and score because nobody on the team is open or they are all running to catch up with him. I considered sticking him in U10, but then he wouldn't see his buddies at all...

I think that they're pretty cute, don't you?

- Mark