Soccer Season

 

 

Katie just finished her spring soccer season.  She has played before but it has been a couple of seasons.  What she lacks in skill, she makes up for in scrappiness!  She is quite the little speedster.  It was amazing to watch her little legs move her across the field.  It was like her legs went twice as fast as the players around her.  And they very well could have because she is about half the size of some of the other players.  She is picking up the skills of the sport and even though she never made a goal she made some great passes and was a fantastic defender.

Even though she played in a rec league, her team was quite competitive.  This was in part because of their coach.  He was such a great coach but he sure liked to win.  It was kind of entertaining to watch him on the sidelines.  It was like you could physically see the battle within himself of trying to balance the strong desire to win and the delicate egos of 8 and 9 year old girls. While on the sidelines the girls who weren't in the game, would pepper him with questions like "Did you notice my new haircut? or Do you want to see our secret handshake? or Watch me do this handstand!"  He would try to validate them but let's be honest what 30+ man notices even when his own wife gets a haircut, let alone one of 10 girls on his soccer team?!?  He was constantly trying to redirect their focus back to the game.  And being a person who is a professional redirector of children's attention, it made me smile to watch. 
My very favorite of these moments was after the game.  The coach would gather all the girls around and they would have a little breakdown/debrief of the game.  Coach would ask things like "So what went well during the game?" or "What do you like about soccer?"  Without fail some girl would pull the conversation off topic and soon they were talking everything but soccer.  It was hilarous to watch the coach's face.  It went something like this:

But he really was a great coach and we would request him again for a great non-competitive winning season!

There is beauty all around

Recently I have been finding signs like these on my girls' doors.

First Annie, then Katie, then Suzie.  They each have their own rooms but finding these signs is kind of funny because they are often asking if they can sleep in each other's rooms- especially when they are scared at night.  (I refuse to let my kids sleep with Eric and I because they are all perpendicular sleepers-meaning they don't sleep laying next to me, rather they sleep with their feet in my back.  So I have offered to let them sleep on the floor next to my bed but none of them have taken me up on the offer because our bed is raised off the ground about 6 inches and their imaginations run wild with what could potential crawl out of those 6 inches.)
So really these signs should read "No siblings permitted- except when I hear noises at night and think hobos are crawling out of my ceiling." (Their a hole in Annie's ceiling about 6 inches in diameter that we have never patched up from some pipe repair we had to make a few years ago and she swears a hobo lives up there.  Although I think only a hobbit hobo could fit through the opening!)
Anyway I was looking closer at the sign on Katie's door and noticed that in attempt to not copy her sister outright, choose to have her sign say,
"No siblings prohibited"
Uh- Katie- I don't think that means what you think it means!
And even though I don't let Suzie sleep with me-she's the worst of the perpendicular sleepers- I will let her cuddle with me at night.  She is my most affectionate child and one night while she was laying in bed with me watching TV she asked me,"Mom, who do you like to cuddle with the most- Dad, me or the blanket?"
Mom: Dad
Suzie: Why?
Mom: Cause he's soft and squishy
Suzie: And what am I -hard and talky?
I don't know about the "hard" part, but as my sister can attest, she is most definitely "talky."