Soccer!!!

This is the one year that Noah and Ryla would be eligible to be on the same soccer team. That means we pretty much had to make sure they were. They really had no idea what they were doing, to them, this was just another obligatory "act cute" photo opp. But they really nailed it!

Aidan played soccer last fall and loved it. He still plays all the time and can't wait for his turn to be on a team again. Because his wisdom and skill are vastly superior to that of his little brother and sister, Aidan got to join dad on the coaching staff for the team. His official title is Assistant to the Head Coach.

The first practice was pretty much pure chaos. Ryla is the oldest kid on the team by at least 6 months, and three of the kids didn't turn 3 until after the season had started. Noah may look like he worked hard in practice. Actually, we couldn't really get him on the field- he just played on the play set. And Ryla was happy to pose for the pic, but she spent the rest of the practice working on her cart wheels.

Keller is a little boy from our neighborhood who is on the team with Noah and Ryla. The three of them are really good influences on each other... okay, they're not, but they have a lot of fun.

We noticed that both of them have a good sense of image management. Rya knows how to present a soft and subtle presence that invites others to notice her. Noah is more of the "I'm gonna kick you in the shin type." I think he sticks out his gut to make himself look bigger to the other kids.

The kids didn't really seem to know much about soccer, but they were pretty quick at picking up the team name. Remembering that they are the Ant Eaters was about the only measurable outcome for the first two practices.

Notice that this is one of those rare moment in little kid soccer when there is not a blob around the ball. Our kids don't really seem to have that tendency to clump up. They pretty much just hand out and wait for the other team to score- why run all over the field when the ref will just bring the ball back to the middle and let you kick it again?

Watching Aidan "coach" little brother and sister is probably the most enjoyable part of the whole thing. We laugh about a lot of the actual game play, but this is a pretty cool experience. Chances are that in 10 years they won't remember much of this, but at least will have the pics to look back on, and we'll be able to tell them how they looked out for each other, learned from each other, and made each other better. Hopefully, they will remember those lessons- even if they never learn how to dribble a soccer ball.