Fall Soccer

Both boys played soccer this fall which kept us fairly busy with practice for each kids once or twice a week and games on the weekend.  The season started out a little stressful because I don't know how to fill out a form therefore Ben was put on a different team that he was on last year.  After many emails to the coach and to the league, I was basically told that there wasn't anything that could be done once the draft was over.  I was more bummed out about this than Ben because I really like his coaches and the other teammates that he played with.  Plus I'm a weirdo and slightly antisocial I was not looking forward to getting to know an entirely new group of people.  At the very last minute the league screwed up and put a kid who was sponsored on the wrong team and a spot opened up on our old team! We were both relieved.  Turns out that one of the kids on his team this year is one of our friends kids so the season was even more fun for us.  That's what it's about- how comfortable us parents are at practice and games, right?

Owen also wanted to play this year so we went ahead and signed him up too.  After the first game he decided that he was just kidding and didn't really want to play soccer.  We kept him at it out of principle but it was pretty evident that he just wasn't enjoying the game.  He's pretty quiet and shy and hung back  during practices and hardly ever touched the ball during the games.  We bribed him early on, cause we're awesome like that, and told him that when he scored a goal he'd get to pick out a small lego set that he had his eye on. During the last game he played, he made good and scored that goal! It was pretty exciting and his coach was just as excited as I was!  

Ben's age group went from playing 3 on 3 to 6 on 6 with a goalie.  Ben played defender during most of his games, which means he was to hold back and help out the goalie.  He improved so much this season that it was fun to watch his progress. That doesn't mean that he didn't get a little squirmy when all the action was happening on the other end of the field. I'm pretty sure during one of his last games he was doing the Thriller dance.  His team played five games last weekend and ended up winning 2nd in their tournament. He's pumped to play again in the spring and I promised him that I'd read the form and fill it out correctly next time.