I thought I had seen everything. But, that was before I signed Matthew up for 4-year old soccer.
So, what is 4-year old soccer exactly? There are about 7-8 kids on the team. The 4-year olds show up, and they are maybe happy to be there or maybe not. They run around, are distracted by everything ("Ohh, look, a dog! Ohh, and dirt! Lets FEED the dog dirt! Yeah! ") and are kicking whatever balls they can find into the net. This is fun, because everyone has their own ball and everyone scores a goal EVERY SINGLE TIME. While waiting their turn, they do interesting things to keep themselves entertained. They do group hugs (which was actually really cute, and only a few of them fell down). They also practiced hitting ...themselves. Yes, just like it sounds, they chose a portion of their body and with each mini-blow would each say "ow!" Picture 6 kids in a row doing this hitting various portions of their body. So, they practice this and scoring goals for a little while and then have a GAME. Yes, this is a for-real actual 5-on-5 game with a goalie and everything. Now, picture that before playing the game everyone has a ball, everyone always kicks this ball, and nobody else takes it away because it belongs to them. THEN, we have the game. This is where there is only ONE ball, and everyone is trying to get it. If you have it, someone else will take it. You will do almost ANYTHING to get it back. First, you will try to tackle it. This results in the whistle, because (of course) one is not allowed to touch the ball. Only the goalie can do that. But, what's a goalie? You always scored before with no obstacles. Now, there's a guy who can block you. But, it gets worse. Not only can he touch the ball...he gets to kick it far away from you. So, you have to run all the way back to get your ball again. Soon, you learn that you can get to the ball pretty fast, especially if you push or trip the other players also trying to get to it. OOPS! this incurs the whistle. You can't do this. Unless it's an accident. Sometimes, you just fall down. And, nobody is there to really help you up. Sometimes, your shoes may fall off.
Matthew only cried about 4 times. He wasn't the only one, and he did pretty well during the game but came off the field sobbing when he saw me at the end. Poor kid. He had been upset on the field mainly because (1) another player (from his own team!) came in front of him to take HIS ball to score the goal and (2) when the player did this he DIDN'T SCORE. Matthew stood behind the boy and literally hung his head and the tears just streamed down his cheeks. He only fell a few times, he only grabbed the ball with his hands once, and he did like the fact that they got a treat at the end. When I asked him if he liked it, he said no. But, later he was proud to show off his "baseball" jersey with his name on it to Dad.
It was fun to watch, and hopefully we'll have some good pictures in the coming weeks....
So, what is 4-year old soccer exactly? There are about 7-8 kids on the team. The 4-year olds show up, and they are maybe happy to be there or maybe not. They run around, are distracted by everything ("Ohh, look, a dog! Ohh, and dirt! Lets FEED the dog dirt! Yeah! ") and are kicking whatever balls they can find into the net. This is fun, because everyone has their own ball and everyone scores a goal EVERY SINGLE TIME. While waiting their turn, they do interesting things to keep themselves entertained. They do group hugs (which was actually really cute, and only a few of them fell down). They also practiced hitting ...themselves. Yes, just like it sounds, they chose a portion of their body and with each mini-blow would each say "ow!" Picture 6 kids in a row doing this hitting various portions of their body. So, they practice this and scoring goals for a little while and then have a GAME. Yes, this is a for-real actual 5-on-5 game with a goalie and everything. Now, picture that before playing the game everyone has a ball, everyone always kicks this ball, and nobody else takes it away because it belongs to them. THEN, we have the game. This is where there is only ONE ball, and everyone is trying to get it. If you have it, someone else will take it. You will do almost ANYTHING to get it back. First, you will try to tackle it. This results in the whistle, because (of course) one is not allowed to touch the ball. Only the goalie can do that. But, what's a goalie? You always scored before with no obstacles. Now, there's a guy who can block you. But, it gets worse. Not only can he touch the ball...he gets to kick it far away from you. So, you have to run all the way back to get your ball again. Soon, you learn that you can get to the ball pretty fast, especially if you push or trip the other players also trying to get to it. OOPS! this incurs the whistle. You can't do this. Unless it's an accident. Sometimes, you just fall down. And, nobody is there to really help you up. Sometimes, your shoes may fall off.
Matthew only cried about 4 times. He wasn't the only one, and he did pretty well during the game but came off the field sobbing when he saw me at the end. Poor kid. He had been upset on the field mainly because (1) another player (from his own team!) came in front of him to take HIS ball to score the goal and (2) when the player did this he DIDN'T SCORE. Matthew stood behind the boy and literally hung his head and the tears just streamed down his cheeks. He only fell a few times, he only grabbed the ball with his hands once, and he did like the fact that they got a treat at the end. When I asked him if he liked it, he said no. But, later he was proud to show off his "baseball" jersey with his name on it to Dad.
It was fun to watch, and hopefully we'll have some good pictures in the coming weeks....
