Our Soccer Stud

Spring has sprung and soccer is in full swing. This is our first season as one of the thousands that play youth soccer. Surprisingly, Carter's never shown an interest in soccer in his plethora of backyard activity. It seems every kid in the state plays soccer, and many of the really young ones probably would rather not, so we never pushed it with him.
As the dreary days of winter trudged on, Carter took an almost overnight interest in soccer and began playing in the living room daily. He is big into competition these days and tee-ball doesn't start until June, so we said why not try soccer? We looked into leagues and found a great one right in our backyard. We had missed the deadline by a day, but they kindly let us sign up anyway. And so the hunt for cleats began. We thought finding little cleats was hard in the summer, but apparently the rush on footwear happens even earlier than February around here- jeez people. We were finally successful- thanks Omega Sports and the wait for the first practice began...

Carter happily donned all his gear and headed to the first practice. Ten 3 and 4 yr olds, 5 girls and 5 boys lined up each with their colorful new ball. The cheerful coach asked, "Who has played soccer before?" Every one of them raised their hands, as all the parents mumbled "no". After all, the backyard and the aisles of Sports Authority count, right? Maybe we have some work ahead. After some warm up exercises, they began drills. They started with each child taking a straight shot on the goal (Carter saw this as an opportunity to jump in the goal and block everyone's shots- not exactly the idea, but hey at least he understands the game.) Then they played Red Light, Green Light, everyone got their snack and called it a day. The first game Saturday should be interesting, especially when they find out there's only one ball...

Fortunately for Julia there's a great playground 15 feet from the practice field :)


Carter was beaming for hours. He loved everything about it. They are the Dragons and he treasures his shiny new silver jersey. When he came home he announced, "Number 6 (him) is gonna score the first goal with his fire-fast power foot!" Look out world, here he comes :)
As I put him to bed that night we talked about the day and the fun he had at practice. After we said his prayers he asked, "Mommy what comes after soccer?" I said, "Tee-ball." He answered, "No, after soccer and tee-ball, what sport comes next?" "I don't know Carter". After a long pause to think he said,
"Ice hockey."

"Good night Carter."