Spring Soccer 2011 - First Game

Soccer has resumed for the Spring 2011 season. Luke's first practice was supposed to be last Wednesday, but it was rained out and rescheduled for Friday. (I'm sensing rained out will be a theme for the next few weeks!) Four of the six team members from the fall returned to the same team/coach, but only one of the two new boys was at practice. It is actually a co-ed league, so you will see girls on the opposing teams in the photos, but Luke's team has been all boys twice now. Fourteen hours after that first practice, they were playing their first game!



It is quite an interesting group of folks. The six boys on Luke's team come from 5 different countries: Bosnia, China, France, Turkey, and the USA (2 kids, one of those obviously being Luke). We could run our own little United Nations! I love talking to the parents and learning about their experiences, be it their own childhoods, often so different from mine, or their great stories about settling in to this country and raising their children here. It is going to be a fun season.




There was a small moment that reminded me that I'm raising a pretty good kid, if not an aggressive one. As is typical of soccer among kids this age, all 6 players (they play 3 on 3) were clustered around the ball. The boy on the opposing team who had control of the ball accidentally tripped with so many feet clustered in a small space (it truly was an accident and not intentional on anyone's part); bless his heart, he went down hard. One of our team took over the ball, and everyone still standing headed back in the opposite direction, leaving the coach to come check on the boy who had fallen. Except Luke. He stopped and asked the boy if he was okay, even helping him up off the ground. I think our team scored a goal while this was happening, but I'm not sure. I was too busy watching my son in a beautiful display of kindness and sportsmanship. I'll take that over scoring a goal any day.

Currently feeling: back at it