So I have have a bunch of stuff to blog about that happened before yesterday, but I'm just so excited about Nathan's first soccer experience that I jumped this post to the front of the line! I played soccer from the time I was five all the way through high school, and learned a lot about staying active and teamwork on the soccer field. One of my longstanding visions of parenthood has been seeing my child playing peewee soccer, with the bottom of the shorts nearly touching the tops of the shin guards, and all the kids moving around in a clump on the field. So I knew that I would be signing Nathan up for AYSO as soon as he was old enough. If he didn't like it, I wouldn't force him to continue on for further seasons, but it was important to me that he at least try it. In theory, Nay was super excited about soccer, and loved running around in the backyard in his new cleats ("These shoes are SUPER fast!") and kicking the ball with one of us.
Yesterday was the big day! The weather was beautiful--sunny and not too hot. The way that the program is structured for the little ones is that they practice from 9:00-9:30am and play their game from 9:30-10:00am. There are six kids on each team and three of them play at a time.
Nathan was pretty unsure about the process at first--he had never played soccer, and didn't know any of the other kids on the team. He was good about getting on the field and trying, which I was relieved to see, as he could have easily decided it was too intimidating. Coach Joe put Nathan on defense for the first quarter and showed him where to stand on the field. Nathan took these instructions very seriously--so much so that for the first couple of plays he stayed rooted to that exact spot in the grass and didn't move a muscle! :)
While the other half of his team played for the second quarter, Nathan watched them closely and soon figured out that it was more fun to run after the ball.
The second half got under way and Nathan was ready to go and having a blast!
Scored his first goal!!!
I love these little ones all lined up cheering on their teammates on the field.
Nathan loved the experience, and dribbled his ball all the way back to the parking lot! He's excited for his next game next week, and I am thrilled that his first experience with a sport I love was a great one.
1 comment:
So cute! And is his whole team blonde?
Post a Comment