Officially A Soccer Mom

Mr. Sneaky Pants was dressed in his soccer uniform right after lunch, even though his first game of the season didn't start until 5:30 p.m.  There was a great deal of anticipation involved.  Every fifteen minutes, all afternoon he was right next to me, asking if it was time for the soccer game yet.  And every time I told him how much longer it was before we were going to leave, he was rather upset.  On and on this went.

The game started out well.  There was running.  There was kicking.  There was the inevitable mass chaos of little people playing soccer for the first time.  There were balls kicked in the wrong direction. It was crazy, very, very crazy.

Here is a teammate nicely reminding my little guy which way he's supposed to be kicking the ball.

And then, this happened:

He took a tumble, which was no big surprise (He inherited my falling genes for sure).  Unfortunately we were playing on a field that also serves as a hockey rink in the winter, which meant it was mostly comprised of weeds, crunchy dirt and rocks.  Falling was not fun.  To make matters worse, the blue player, Mr. SP's best friend from preschool flew over the top of him and crunched him.  Not good.  

So we had a little break, and quite a bit of whining, and quite a bit of crying, and a big discussion about how you could still be friends with your friend from the other team you crunched you.  And then he was back in the game, on the field, ready to go.

But then, there were some more falls, and he drank up all the water in his water bottle, and all of the water in his friend Andrew's water bottle, and he was getting pretty tired.  There were a lot of statements of "I hate soccer.  I'm quitting.  The blue team is after me and they're trying to beat me up."   But we expected that.  After all, this is the child who came out of the womb and was mad, mad, mad.  He has had trouble controlling his emotions from the start . . . even his newborn cry was distinctive, high pitched, and required immediate action or it induced insanity within minutes.  And you have to have a lot of experiences to learn self control.  So we kept at it.  I did my best to reason with him while he was taking breaks on the sidelines, and tell him how terrific he was doing. He didn't really buy a word of it.

Can I just take a minute to tell you about our amazing soccer coach?  When I was thinking of letting Mr. SP play soccer this spring, Sophie, our babysitter said right away that she knew of the perfect coach, who would know exactly how to handle Mr. SP.  (The coach also goes to our church).  Because Sophie knows Mr. SP better than nearly everyone and knows just what to do so his personality is butter in her fingers, I trusted her with my whole heart.  And she was right!  As usual!

The soccer coach knows exactly what to do with my little guy.  When he falls down, before Mr. SP can even start his wailing routine, the coach is right there, sweeping him up off the ground like a rag doll, yelling "Run!  Run!  Kick that ball!"  and that's what Mr. SP does, suddenly grinning instead of crying.  After one particular instance, when the blue team managed to steal the ball away from my little one, a mean, angry scowl appeared on his face, and there was a bit of a stomp to his step.  The assistant coach yelled from the sidelines, "Does he need a break, maybe?"  And the coach yelled back, "Oh no!  That's just his game face!"  I cracked up so hard I nearl
y rolled on the ground. Within seconds, Mr. SP was back running after the ball.

I don't know what the score was in the end.  In fact I don't even know if anyone bothered to keep score in the second half.  Things got quite crazy.  After hand shakes, and snacks, it was time to go home because this soccer player's sisters had to go to the bathroom.  

Mr. SP was not happy about leaving.  He was not happy about his seat belt in the car, and he was not happy about having to clean his room when he got home.  But it turns out, that he took off his shoes, whined and cried up the staircase, plopped down on his bed, and two minutes later, I kid you not . . . two minutes, I was up the stairs and found him totally, completely, utterly asleep, on his stomach with his bottom in the air and his feet suspended upward somehow, his face completely mushed up against the pillow.  He didn't change out of the uniform.  He didn't have supper.  He slept all night and slept in this morning.  

When he did wake up, he had a much better opinion of soccer, and a much more reasonable disposition.  I think by next Wednesday we'll be geared up for game 2.