Soccer season begins!!!

Our first soccer player!!!

A few months ago, Sadie had asked me if she could play soccer when she got older. I told her that of course she could, but she could also play this spring if she wanted. Her next question was, "I can play like Addi and Jada?" (Those are my good friend Dixie's daughters who both play soccer and who Sadie adores!) I told her she could and she was so excited. When I went to register her, I offered to help coach her team. Little did I know they would ask me to be the head coach!! But I agreed since I thought it would be fun for us (and I did play soccer and also coached my sister's team). Matt is so involved in helping coach Wyatt's hockey and baseball teams, so I figured I could do the same for Sadie.

We have had practices for three weeks now and although it is fun, it is also a lot of 'babysitting' kids who are easily distracted or have a hard time listening. But Sadie loves having me as her coach and I am enjoying it.

After her first practice, we got in the car and her first comment was, "Mom, no one said anything about my pretty nail polish...and I just painted them today!"

'Oh dear' was my first thought.....and then I tried to be patient and remember that I have a very girlie daughter and I responded by saying, "Sadie, that's because this is soccer and people aren't paying attention to nails. They are very pretty but we are here to learn how to play soccer and have fun doing that. If you want people to say something to you, then work hard and try and score a goal."

That seemed to make sense to her, but then as she was reflecting on practice, she said, "Mom, my team lost in our scrimmage (we played a little game of 4-on-4) but that's okay because my friend Lauren was on the team that won."

My competitive nature responded in shock, but I calmly said to Sadie, "Sadie, it's great that you are happy for Lauren, but when you are playing, you want your team to win. You want to try your hardest to beat the other team, even if you have friends on that team."

It was quiet for a little while and then Wyatt asked me what my favorite sport was and started talking about his favorite sport. When he asked Sadie what her favorite sport was, she replied with, "Mom, is dance a sport?"

And those were the conversations that took place after her first ever soccer practice.....we will see how this goes!! But she is only 5 years old--I don't even know if I was competitive yet at that age! I am glad that she looks forward to it each time we go and she continues to improve and work hard!! If nothing else, it's great to get her running around and being physically active!