Soccer Mom

I'm a soccer mom.

To some people, that might have a negative connotation. But to me, well, I'm really starting to embrace and enjoy being a soccer mom.

My Saturdays are consumed with it from 9am-10am (Owen) and then again from 10am-11:30 am (Liam), and Liam has practices 2-4 times a week.

Owen is in Kiddie Kickers. We tried this when he was 3 and we only took him two times because he refused to let go of our legs. Not very conducive to actually playing soccer. Now that he's a mature 4 year old, he is totally digging every single one of the 60 minutes. From the very first day, he took off and didn't even glance back. The quintessential shy boy has even made a buddy on the team, Dusty, the coach's son. I don't know why these two click, they just do. And they don't even say much to each other, they just kind of hang out, and you can just tell that they are buddies.

Liam did Kiddie Kickers for a couple of seasons and has now played on an organized parks and rec soccer team for three seasons. Liam's coach this year is teaching the kids A LOT and expects a lot out of them and even though our parks & rec doesn't officially "keep score", our coach is turning Liam's team into a winning machine (and I keep score). I understand what parks & rec is getting at by not keeping score so that the game is FUN for the kids, but I happen to believe that competition is fun. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Liam has never been the player to score 7 goals in one game, he's actually never scored any goals in any games (until last week), but he plays hard and seems to enjoy it. It is certainly not his natural gift the way that baseball is, but he has fun. He scored his first and second goals last Saturday (when Kev and I were away at a golf outing - so we missed it, of course). The other two games that he's had this year, the ones that I was AT, he came SO close to scoring...mutliple times...barely missing the net. I'm beginning to think I will never witness one of his goals. So, I will go to tomorrow night's game, in all of my soccer mom glory, and cheer at the top of my lungs for Liam, for all of his teammates, and for the mighty green Spartans!

And if Liam doesn't score, I just may explode...or be banned by the coach from attending any more games.