The beginnings of fall always brings the anticpation of starting school, pumpkins, autumn leaves, soup, and of course, in our house, SOCCER SEASON. I must say I am a soccer mom, not just because that is the current "favorite" little person sport, but because I have been immersed in it way before it was "cool". In fact I think we (my twin bro) and I were 6 years old when he brought home a flyer from school about soccer at the YMCA. He and our older bro got registered and thus my immersion into soccer began. I actually didn't play on a team until I was 9, I think. But even then, our yellow jerseyed team and coach only relied on my bro to score. The whole game plan was "pass it to Chris". So for me, in the back field, I just played with my barrettes (the ones way back then that you made by weaving different colors of ribbon on a barrette) and was bored. So I didn't play again until high school. This isn't to say that I wasn't still at games. My brothers played all the time from grade school, middle, high school, traveling teams, and college. In high school my older brother graciously agreed to coach a girls indoor team for me to be on. A bunch of us girls, most of whom had never played soccer, played for 2 seasons. Throw in an outdoor season on the high school team - I played right midfield.
Jared played growing up too. So by the time Ethan turned 4, we were chomping at the bit to introduce this love of soccer to him. They are so cute at that age, running in a big wad together, trying to figure out how to use their own feet. He too loves soccer. He has played since then on outdoor rec leagues, competitive leagues and recently on indoor leagues. This season, we are on a new frontier, he has gone over to the dark side!!! Referree.... I'm just kidding about the dark side, it is actually the neon yellow side with stripes/ or the bubble bee look is more accurate. He reffed his first game last week, Luke's age group of U8, and really liked it. In fact, he will ref 3 of Luke's games during this season.
Speaking of Luke, his age group has moved up to bigger fields and more kids on the field and a goalie. He really has improved. He is on a good team this year and hopefully he will continue to understand the game more and more.
Brady, on the other hand, is just trying to get a feel for the game. He has played outside with his older siblings. But as he found out last Saturday, that is much different than actually being on the field for a real game. Brady looked quite confused on the field with everyone running around him. He came off the field quite upset. Jared did get him calmed down. Later that evening, we talked about just playing to have fun. No pressure to score or anything else. Just have fun. Within a little while, Brady proclaimed, "I wish my game was now because I think I'm ready now."
Rachel played soccer for a couple of seasons and is now ready to try something new...more on that later.
