Fall Soccer
*Facebook 8/27/10 - Soccer cleats for the bunch: $169.97. 8:30am Saturday soccer game: priceless…and nonrefundable.
Last fall was our first experience trying to do organized sports with all the kids. Of course we could field a soccer team just from our own family, but we decided it would be better for everyone to play with their own age groups. Emily, Hannah and Brianna played on the same team. In our town they divide the teams by schools, but we made a special petition to keep the three girls together even though Brianna attends the Catholic School. I believe my wording in the letter to the Soccer Commissioner read something like, “Please take pity on me…” Since most of the time the teams play double headers, we often ended up with a whole Saturdayful of soccer games to watch. We invested in really comfortable folding chairs.
*Facebook 8/28/10 - 5 Soccer games today. That’s 5 hours of soccer, folks… Good thing Levi is still too little, or we’d have 6. And they don’t allow rum at the field.
Watching the games was entertaining. There wasn’t a great deal of actual soccer being played. Gabriella spent most of her time turning summersaults and lying on the ground. Our favorite moment was when she actually convinced all the other little girls on her team to lie down as well. I’m pretty sure that is the same moment that the coach decided not to be in charge of the four-year-old girls anymore.
Sam’s team actually had some good players and he became their go-to-goalie for a while, but when we watched the big girls’ teams we had to come to terms with the fact that Brianna, Emily and Hannah were really just in it for the fashion. I’m okay with that. Tie dyed socks? Yup. Pink cleats? Obviously. Neon shoelaces? Um…can you even PLAY soccer without those?
Of course, there was no way to avoid the fact that game times overlapped quite frequently. When this occurred, we flipped a coin to decide who got us for the first half and who got us for the second. We decided that if ever three games were playing all at once, we would just give up and go out to lunch.
Soccer pretty much dominated our lives for 6 weeks. We watched soccer as the last bits of summer faded away. We watched soccer as the mosquitoes, for which our town is known, ate us alive. We watched soccer as it got colder and colder and then finally, we watched soccer in the snow.
*Facebook 9/7/10 - School, homework, dinner, clean up, soccer, showers goodnight, good morning, repeat.
Comment by Me: 9/14/10 - Keep thinking I should change this post, but it still applies...
*Facebook 9/30/10 - Is watching soccer (again) in the land of 100,000,000,000 mosquitoes
And then, just like that, it was over.
*Facebook 10/3/10 - Soccer season is finally over! The girls placed 3rd in the tournament and boys were fourth. Gabby stayed upright for the whole last game! We love watching all these games, but we're glad to have our evenings and weekends back! The only sad thing is that soccer was the ONLY time Bill and I could ever sit still! Thankfully, basketball season has already begun…
Spring Soccer
By the time spring soccer registrations rolled around, Bill and I had forgotten about the chaos of last fall and only remembered how cute they all were out on the field. (Sort of like that amnesia that allows you to have another baby even after you’ve experienced labor…) Now that Levi was old enough to play, we would get to take all six to fields! Oh, how I wish I had started blogging earlier so that I could have read about last season to remind myself.
First of all, the season started three weeks late. Because the field was still covered with snow. In April. The league decided that rather than extend the season into June, they would make up ALL OF THE GAMES during the month of May. Just to make things interesting, Bill and I each decided to sign up for softball teams, and we let Sam sign up for baseball too. Genius Plan.
*Facebook 4/22/11 – I am too busy to update my Facebook status. In related news: I just imported the soccer, baseball and softball schedules into our calendar. YIKES! 6 kids and 2 adults in sports are too many. I hope no one needs me to do anything the week of May 9-15, because we have no less than 23 sporting events! Who am I kidding? I hope no one needs me to do anything until June.
Getting all six kids into their soccer garb and out the door is an adventure all in itself. Thankfully, spring soccer doesn’t start until 11am (as opposed to fall soccer with 8am game times) so we have a good three hours to get them ready. We use every minute. First we have to locate all of the items. Each child needs two cleats, two shin guards, two socks, a jersey, shorts, water bottle and their own soccer ball. Of course we have a special place to keep those 42 pieces of equipment, but do our children put things where they go? (This is a rhetorical question. They don’t.) It takes about an hour just to collect everything.
Some of my favorite Getting-Ready quotes:
“My uniform doesn’t match my cute new soccer shorts. Can I switch teams?”
[Crying hysterically] “Hannah hit me in the head with a soccer…sock.”
“MOM?! The dog ate my cleat.”
As we do every time we leave the house, we usually return 5 or 6 times to retrieve forgotten items. The best day though, was a few weeks ago. The sun had been shining all week and the day before we had played outside without coats. So, we dressed the kids accordingly and went to soccer. Where we found out it was 30 degrees. And hailing. I drove back home, grabbed warm clothes and blankets, pulled Levi off the field, re-dressed him, and then watched the kids play soccer in their winter coats with jerseys on top!
*Facebook 4/30/11 – Freezing our tushies off at soccer! It is actually hailing! The bad news is that when the cold goes away, the mosquitoes will come back…
The kids have all improved over the winter. Emily, Hannah and Brianna actually spend time thinking about soccer instead of just their outfits, and Brianna is a wonderful goalie this year. (Just keep that ball away from her face.) Gabriella spends about half of each game running around with her team, (and the other half sitting on the sidelines asking when it will be snack time). Sam’s games are fun to watch now since the boys are old enough that their skills have really developed. Levi, on the other hand, is going to need some work. We think he might be playing the other football…
*Facebook 4/30/11 - Levi's first soccer game. Bill: Levi, this is not a tackling sport. Levi: it’s not?!?! WHY?
*Facebook 5/7/11 - Another soccer parent just suggested shock collars for the (THIRD GRADE!) girls on our team so he could "zap them when they [mess] up." I think this just got too competitive for The Bunch. We just like to run around looking cute in our uniforms...
Unless the world ends in the next 30 minutes, we'll be watching another 5 soccer games this morning. We'll pack our comfy chairs, plenty of layers and some bug spray just in case. And then we'll enjoy the only thing that really matters: our kids having fun (and, of course, neon soccer-cleat shoelaces).
This is how long I've been watching soccer - Sam's 5 year old team!
© Jody Hoffman 2011
Move over Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck. The tears are streaming down my face I'm laughing so hard!! Jody Hoffman, You are a Wonder. Even though we only had 2/7 of your courseload and our kids are grown, you take me right back...hoping that whatever was rolling in the back of my car was NOT that thermos of VERY old milk.
Posted by: Nancy Kaplan | 05/22/2011 at 05:07 AM