Soccer!

We had been planning on signing Carter up for some sort of martial arts after his surgery this winter, but just before we were about to go looking at programs, I happened to see that it was the end of the registration period for our town's youth soccer program.  He had wanted to do soccer last year, but with Jacob's lacrosse and whatever else, it just never happened.  So when I saw that we could still make it in for this year, we asked him and he wanted to do it.  So we signed up.

And then we heard nothing.  By late April I finally tracked down the league's Facebook page and realized that there had already been one of two indoor practices, so I messaged them and they explained that our original coach wasn't able to continue and they were looking for a new one.  Pretty quickly after that we received an email from the replacement.  She passed along the info for the next practice, which we went to, but then it was a two-week wait until the start of the season.

This past Saturday, before we went to Buffalo, we had to go pick up Carter's uniform at his coach's house.  When we got there, he was hesitant to even get out of the car.  Sometimes he has these super-shy moments, and apparently this was one of them.  I could barely get him to follow me to the porch, then he hid behind me and would barely say hi to the coach when we got there.  We did find out, however, that the sweetest girl from his class was on the team, and that another boy went to his school, which made me think that maybe the teams were set up according to that information and there might be more.  Sure enough, over the course of the week Carter figured out that one of his best friends from his class was also on the team!  How did he figure it out?  Well...when we got back in the car with the uniform, he wanted me to open the bag so he could see it.  When I did, I was instantly a bit confused...and immediately internally cringed.  The jersey was PINK.  Pepto-Bismol pink, with light blue and gray stripes diagonally across the chest.  The second Carter saw it he insisted he wasn't going to wear it.  He didn't want to play, and that was that.  I spent most of the drive home trying to convince him that everyone would be wearing it ("But not the other team!"), and that cool guys can pull off pink.  When we got home, Craig even pulled out his purplish-pink Knighthawks cancer night jersey to prove that even big guys wear pink.  All to no avail, but I had already threatened to take away all electronics for a week if he did not go out and play for his first game, so I was hopeful we could convince him eventually.  But anyway, the pink jersey helped Carter figure out that his friend was playing on this team, as well.

Luckily, it didn't end up being an issue because we got an email earlier in the week saying that we were getting new jerseys and could switch them out the night of the first game, which was Wednesday night.  However, it remained to be seen if that would even happen.  Our weather has been terrible this spring--while temperatures are apparently around average, the problem is that any nice weather days have been offset equally with cold weather days.  It just can't seem to get warm and stay there for any period of time.  Apparently on average our first 80 degree day is April 30, and we haven't seen anything close yet, and other than one possibility on Sunday, it doesn't look like even any sustained 70s are coming anytime soon.  Plus, in the meantime, we've had a ton of rain.  I know the town little league has barely been able to play at all, and the soccer fields were actually shut down for nearly a week leading up to Wednesday because they were simply too wet.  And when it rained again on Wednesday afternoon and looked to continue in the evening, I figured we were either going to be very wet and muddy that night, or going home early and disappointed.  Fortunately, neither happened!

A fresh rainstorm came through about a half hour before we had to leave for the field, but miraculously it stopped as we were leaving the house, and by the time we got there, it was starting to clear up!  It took a minute to find our team, since we didn't know what color they were wearing, but once we did Carter was thrilled to see black jerseys and his buddy Ben.  His friend Lailah came a few minutes later, and apparently he knows another girl from the afterschool program and the one boy's mom works at the school in the lunch room.  I think that helped him feel very comfortable right from the get-go.

Full Disclaimer: I must note here that despite working for a soccer team for a few years, I'm not really great with soccer equipment or rules. 

• I'm pretty sure the cleats we have for him are either more for baseball or generic sports cleats, but for two months I'm not buying new ones if we have functional ones that fit.  
• No one ever clarified if we need to bring a ball to practice, so we hadn't...but everyone else does, so he has one now that's the proper size, even though he already had a bigger one at home.  
• In the first pics below his shin guards are outside his socks because I wasn't really sure if I could just stick them in the socks, or if the type he has needed to be outside the socks...but after experimenting throughout the night, we're best with shin guards in the sleeves under the socks.  
• I still don't know if he got giant socks or what, because everyone else's were up to their knees and his easily went up his whole leg.  
• His shorts are giant.  I ordered an XS but he got small, so I guess I need to do some creative stitching this weekend.  We made them work with the drawstring, but even with that they were huge and they were clearly bothering him.

So, it wasn't the most graceful entry into the soccer world, but we survived.  The first half of the hour every week is practice.  They'll work on skills and drills as a team.  The second half hour is a game against another team, with four kids per team on the field at a time.  I guess it's not exactly real soccer--it's actually very similar to the games they did at the end of his Micro Soccer experience last year--but at least now they have a real team and can sub in and out.  And they are seriously so darn cute.

Carter is in the middle with the white, red, and black ball.  His buddy Ben is ahead of him, and Lailah is behind him.

The game was, as expected, a lot of back and forth.  I think the kids' skills were actually better than I expected, though.  The other team had an ace, which left the final score a little lopsided (5-2, if I recall), but some of the kids were really good.  Lailah in particular was awesome.  Considering she seems like a sweet, quiet girl, she was out there speeding down the field, controlling the ball, and taking on the opposing players.  I was seriously impressed!  Carter certainly held his own considering this was his first real game.  He had one nice block and had a couple chances to bring the ball up the field.  He was always moving (which is the opposite of Jacob, who never looks particularly light on his feet), and he looked like he had a lot of fun!  The priceless moment of the night was when Ben got hit in the chest (this was after already hurting his foot), and he dropped to the pitch like he'd been shot.  He looked quite like a pro, actually, if you've seen real soccer games!  He came running off, and we all felt bad because it was quite a hit, but given that this was crying spell #2, his dad quipped that maybe he should have signed him up for acting lessons!  Oh, the drama!  But he was fine, and certainly not alone in the tears department!

When they subbed back out, the kids got to sit with their families.  When Carter subbed out before the last quarter, along came a tap on his shoulder from Lailah, who ever-so-sweetly said "Hi" and asked if he wanted to play with her.  Those two played for the entire last quarter, kicking the ball back and forth.  It was so cute that while I normally would have wanted him to pay attention and watch his team, I wasn't going to interrupt them!  She was one of Carter's first friends back in September.  She's on his bus and was one of the few classmates who didn't have a gross habit (apparently a lot of classmates still lick weird things or suck fingers or eat boogers), so they got along well almost immediately.  Every time I've seen her she seems very sweet, and I won't lie that it would be insanely cute to pull these pics out on their wedding day in about 20 years.  Heehee!

All in all, it was a successful night!  He had fun playing, we had fun watching, and it seems like it should be a fun season!

And in case I don't have anywhere else to put this, I just wanted to mention we had another first the next night.  Jacob had his first school dance!  It was low key, not a dress-up thing, and essentially just two hours doing crazy dances with his fellow fifth graders.  He initially wanted to go, then didn't...but we encouraged him to do it, and once his best friend showed up in the parking lot, he was all in.  We took Carter out for a nice, gluten-filled dinner (Texas Roadhouse for the first time in years...yum!) and then picked up that all-important practice soccer ball before grabbing Jacob and taking a family trip to Kohl's.  Jacob had a blast at the dance!  He was a sweaty mess and it was entertaining seeing him partake in the last dance with the whole group.  Hard to believe we have less than six weeks left before he's done with elementary school and moving on to bigger and better things!  HOW?!  Just craziness.  Taking a lot of deep breaths for the end-of-the-year schedule and trying to get summer plans set up.  So much to think about!