You'll have to forgive me (again) for combining this post, which really should be several different ones, but in the interest in getting things done.....
Fall soccer season is upon us.
As you may recall, Peter has played soccer several seasons before, dating back to when he was just three years old. His last season prior to this was in the fall when he was just 4 and in Pre K. Lucy had just been born and although he was just as "good"at the game as he had ever been and he had played well through 2 seasons before, that season went terribly. There was a lot of crying. HE struggled with getting along with his team mates. He got frustrated if he didn't score. He didn't like playing with his team and sharing the ball..... I don't know exactly what the problem was, but on the last day of the season when we skipped the trophy ceremony entirely and just high tailed it out of there, I made the decision that we'd be taking a break from the sport with him for awhile, at least. That spring he played t-ball out in town (rather than on base) and was pretty successful so I didn't mind the fact that he didn't play spring soccer at all.
When he was 5 I had just gone back to work and he started kinder so I kept to my word and didn't sign him up again. He was LESS than thrilled about this, but he was having enough trouble at school remembering how to behave himself so I told him he could play t-ball again in the spring if he was good, then maybe we'd try soccer again the following year when he went into 1st grade.
No sooner had we arrived in Monterey then fall soccer registration on base opened up again so I decided to let him play again.
The weird part was, A.J. asked to play too.
Now, I know what you're thinking: You're thinking that I started Peter in sports at 3 and yet I never let A.J. play any. You're thinking that because she is a girl I put her in dance and I kept her out of sports on purpose. I am assuming this is what you are thinking, because, and I'm sorry but this is the truth, this is what my parents did to me. It didn't happen when I was 3 because when Steve and I were 3 we didn't do.... well, anything. But when I was 6 and Steve was 7 he started playing football and I started dance and gymnastics and that was that. Eventually I got to try cheer and my brother whole heartedly quit football, because, really now, who was he kidding? But sports were something I was just not allowed to do. My best friend played softball and I begged to be allowed on her team, but.... NO. I'm sure money played a big part of it, but even if that was the case, my mom said that wasn't the case and that team sports weren't "for" the kind of girl that I was or wanted to be. Whatever that meant. Anway mid way through middle school, crappy divorced parents and puberty and hormones and the insane pressure and difficulty of ballet on top of Cheerleading broke me and I begged my mom to quit dancing. The truth was I wanted to spend less time at the dance studio being, well, criticized, and more time at school being part of stuff there.
I really really really wanted to play basketball. I still wanted to try softball and if that didn't work I knew I could have fun running track and field which (back then) I'd always been pretty good at... for a girl.
Yea.
No.
I sure did quit dance and switched to Fall cheer leading and I'm sure my mother's bank account rejoiced but when sport try outs came around my mother just laughed.
Blegh.
So now, all these years later I have Peter who wants to do every sport known to man and usually shows a decent chance of being pretty good at them if he'd focus more on working hard and trying his best instead of begging to play video games afterward and chasing the girls. Then I have A.J. who LOVES to dance and seems like maybe some day she can be pretty good at it and for now she's smart enough to remember the routines and cute enough to milk it the rest of the way in the mean time. But I don't want her to grow up doing only one thing.
Meanwhile she's the child who sits on the pool deck and refuses to get in for lessons. Each time soccer sign ups and t-ball signs ups come around I ask her if she wants to try and until now she's looked at me like I was nuts.
"What do you mean if I play t-ball this year I can be on Peter's team? Why would I want to play on a team of boys??? Ew."
(Alright she doesn't actually say EW, but you can tell it's what she's thinking by the way she looks at me.)
I feel like maybe I'll have a chance at softball with her when she's old enough for an all girls team, maybe, but then again after soccer this season, maybe not. She might never let me put her in sports again.....
Because, you see, when we moved here, I told her we were going to back OFF from the dancing so much this year. We were going to try some new things. So she said she wanted to play soccer. And I was so excited and I signed her right up. And that was great because at the time she was going to take just 2 dance classes (a ballet/tap combo class- again, and a tumbling class.)
But then, she did that tumbling and circus camp in July and she talked about competing with dance and she auditioned for their comp team.... and that put her in 5 dance classes (jazz, ballet, team technique, team rehearsal, and tumbling oh, plus a 30 minute private tap to do another solo.)
And THEN, because all of that wasn't enough, she begged to audition for Nutcracker and was cast as a Bon Bon which added another hour of rehearsal every weekend.
Is this INSANE enough yet? No? Well, good, because a few girls backed out and then they added her as an Angel for Nutcracker too. (Plus one MORE hour of rehearsal each week.)
So she's now not quite 5 and dancing basically 7-8 hours a week. AND she's signed up for soccer.
Sweet.
Dancing makes her so happy! And she's holding her own in classes and on the team even though she's overwhelmingly the youngest one (most of the kids on the team with her are 6-10 years old.)
BUT she also committed to play soccer and we want her to learn about making commitments and sticking to them.
Wonder how this is going to go?
Well obviously, the first thing that happened was she was put on a team where practice conflicted with dance. I'm mean, of course.
But I worked it out at the studio that she would leave tumbling class a little early and be able to go to the second half of practice each week and that was going to have to be good enough.
It wasn't.
A.J. got to that first practice and saw that she was late to the party (even though I explained it ahead of time) and cried and cried and didn't want to play any more.
Until afterward of course when it became obvious that all those afternoons in the backyard with her brother had paid off and playing soccer really was something she could do if only we could get her to try.
She started running around by herself and, well, just look at her go.
Luckily, after that first week they found a team to switch her to that practice later and no longer conflicted. She was still late to the party as a new team mate, but she could be there for all of practice and have as much practice time as the other kids to be ready for the games.
This helped a lot. When she wasn't complaining about all the running. Or about being tired. Or about being hungry.
Alright, most of the time it's that she's hungry.
Then again, of course, nearly all her games conflict with Peter's and are on a different field, so I never really get to see her play. She picks to have Matt at her games and this seems fair to me anyway, because I spend an awful lot of time with her at dance and I don't get to see Peter nearly as much.
So while I was down at Peter's first game this season, Matt took these photos of A.J. at hers.
Not going to lie, when they switched her to a RED team I was so happy. It's so very, GO BUCKS! ;)
She's like most of the girls and gets frustrated and mad that the boys can be so much rougher and faster. I think she is absolutely capable of holding her own against them, but she hesitates and then she gets upset when it doesn't go her way.
Matt tells me she spends a lot of each game like this.
But her coach is good at getting her back into the game which is nice.
Here she is throwing the ball back in after it went out of bounds.
Meanwhile, Peter.
Oh my Peter.
He plays on a U8 team now meaning kids who are 6 and 7 but not yet 8. And of course, as we all know, he like, JUST turned 6. So he's younger. Also, his team is girl heavy. Which is fine, except many of them hesitate and aren't as aggressive or as into it, but then again when you get to the U8 division some of those on other teams kids are GOOOOOD. Also there are a lot of them on the team, so he only usually gets to play about half the game, at best.
I try not to take as many pictures and just enjoy the games now, but here are a few. This is the third game (he missed his second game because he was sick) he was playing goalie in the 2nd quarter against a crazy good team. (The end score unofficially - because we don't officially keep score- was like 9 to nothing.) He stopped the ball 5 or 6 times but then also got scored on twice. The best part was, it didn't bother him though. He shook it off and moved on. Gosh. How far he's come.
Also, and I guess I didn't realize how much soccer he plays at recess because I was shocked to see his awesome drop kick.
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| Nice. |
In other news, at that week's game, Miss A.J. scored her first ever soccer goal. I was SOOO proud and so sad I missed it. Then again, she was more interested in telling me about the snack she got after the game. Priorities.
Here's another few photos of Peter playing (he's number 8.) This was the 4th game. It ended in a zero score tie.
It's really neat to watch him now because he pays careful attention to his assignment. He works hard to stay on defense and protect the goal and the back half of the field if that's his position and I know that takes a lot of effort and concentration. A few years ago he wouldn't have been that patient.
He still loves to play offense and charge the ball too, of course, but he's learning and growing.
I always enjoy the high fives and cheer after the games.
Yes he plays on the "Summer Snowman." Clearly this is the team name that wins when there are like 8 girls on your team. :)
Alright, and a few more of A.J.--
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| She's borrowing my favorite sparkly red handband for the game. Why does it have to look cuter on her than it does on me? |
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| Those are Peter's old cleats. The first ones I ever bought him. (*sniff*) |
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| I love when the coach holds hands with them to get them into it. |
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| Running through the parent tunnel after the game. |
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| And of course a "victory" cheer with Daddy. |
