Soccer!

Gabriel surrounded by his teammates, Nicholas, Ethan, Josiah and Jonathan, and in front of his coaches, Coach Ryan and Coach Allie.
Game face: Go sharks!

Gabriel started soccer a month ago. Jav and I have always looked forward to the day we could stand on the sidelines and cheer on that boy at something. Gabriel had a skills class in soccer back in April and May, so we thought it would be a good sport to start out with. We signed up at the Y, which I love because of the diversity of kids and parents. His coaches are two cute TCU sophomores, Ryan and Allie. At first I thought they would never figure out how to coach this age, but they seem to be figuring it out pretty well now. The first few games were a challenge to keep them headed towards the right goal. Luckily the refs have decided to let them play for the same goal the entire game.

The challenge for me has been to keep my mouth shut. It's been waaaaaayyyyy tougher than I expected to see other kids running faster and trying harder than my kid. It's really hard to not nag at him to try harder or fun faster. Sometimes we just can't help it, but when we slip up like that he seems to slump even more into himself and completely stop paying attention to the game. I have to remind myself that he just turned five, this is his first sports experience, and I don't want him to get a bad taste for it this early. I told him I wanted him to have three goals every time he plays:1) listen to the coaches and play for your team. 2) Do your best, and c) Have fun! We were having a little trouble with that second requirement. Then we missed the week we went to the beach, and were concerned that he would be even more disinterested when we got back. We took the soccer ball on the trip, but the only taker Jav had for kicking it on the beach was Joel, who played with Daddy for about 20 minutes.

Something that DOES seem to help Gabriel is getting him outside in our backyard to practice. Not just kicking the soccer ball or stopping it, but running. We play a strange version of Duck, Duck, Goose and chase each other all over the yard. I think it's really building up his stamina. Tuesday he had a much better practice, and was laughing and having fun the whole hour.

We were really thrown for a loop today, however, when Coach Ryan asked if Gabriel would play for the opposing team. They only had three players show up and if he didn't switch teams the game would be forfeited, which of course no one wanted. Coach Ryan seemed to think that Gabriel could handle it over all the other players, which surprised me because of Gabriel's previous lack of focus. But I talked to him and explained that we really needed him to help out the other team, changed his jersey from red to blue, and sent him over to the other team's coaches. They were so sweet and applauded him. I ended up being the confused one, because I wanted to cheer him on, but also wanted to cheer for the Sharks. The other parents said they would forgive me this one day.

Well, I've got to hand it to Gabriel. I'm not sure if he was playing well to impress his Tia, Tita and Tito, who were sweet enough to come to the game, or if he just all of a sudden "got" it. He was totally into the game for the first three quarters. He not only was running after the ball or the group of kids around the ball, he finally was not afraid to try and take it away from another kid. Of course, the first goal he scored EVER was for the wrong team. But then he had a great assist, and once took the ball all the way down the field only to miss getting a goal by inches. The fourth quarter he was just plain tired (they all were, with no available subs to come in for them). He stopped watching the ball and was just running wherever the wind took him, and talked with his original teammates. But that didn't matter. We were SO proud of him.