Soccer mom

Fall is my very favorite season. It seems we are moving slowly into it with a back-and-forth of cool days and warm days. It is the season to play outside as much as possible.

This year, playing outside includes soccer season. It is our very first foray into the world of youth soccer and it has been...interesting.

Soccer is an age-group sport, not a skill-based sport. Which is a bit frustrating. Olivia is in the "under 6" group, which includes kids aged 4-6, and she is nearly a head taller than everyone else. While she has yet to perfect her skills, she definitely has them.

The most obvious of her skills is speed. This kid is fast. She gets in there and steals the ball and then breaks away and is on the other side of the field kicking on goal before half of the kids even realize what is going on. Now, if we could just improve her kicking accuracy, she'd be a rock star!

Joe is the coach of this team. We are still a little unsure about how we got roped into that. However, as much as he says he is ineffective at this age group, there is no doubt that he knows more about the sport than 90% of the adults involved. Many of the adults are learning the rules as they go, sometimes from him, even if the kids aren't really absorbing it. (Kids in the 4-year-old age range cannot be expected to remember the rules of soccer.) And Olivia is learning a lot from him. So it is fine.

Carrying her brother around at water break time.

Martin has been my spectator companion for soccer practices and games. He likes to try to walk onto the field while the kids are running drills. I try to keep him behind the net as much as possible, but he's getting to be faster than me.

Kicking the ball into the wrong side of the net.

As fast and valuable as Olivia is on the field, she also really likes to play goalie. She's so cute. She stands in the box shouting cheers to her teammates and gets all excited when she blocks a kick on goal or gets to kick the ball back into play.

So far, soccer season has been fairly enjoyable. I think we'll enjoy it even more next year, when competition is introduced and more kids are playing the game instead of kicking up dirt and picking clover.