Soccer "Practice"

Big Brother had his first (loosely-termed) soccer "practice" on Monday. It was quite fun (and eventful).

As you may remember, Busy-Dad-E was quickly promoted to the rank of coach by volunteering to "help" with the team. Or, as defined by the YMCA dictionary, help = you get to do it all yourself, at least until you can con, I mean "recruit", another parent to be your assistant.

Things started off on the wrong foot (literally) as I managed to bring two mismatched tennis shoes to change into at work. (Note to self, turn on lights when picking out shoes for soccer practice).

Many thanks to Mom-E for bringing the correct shoe before the start of practice. Congratulations, you're the grand prize winner of about a bazillion "wife points" for saving me from a great first impression on all of the parents:

"Hi, I'll be teaching your child how to play soccer, even though I haven't played organized soccer in about 20 years, and I can't seem to even match my own shoes."

I imagine at that moment the YMCA's lawyers were already drafting a memo to change their definition of "help."

Big Brother arrives to the practice field and is VERY excited about playing soccer. So excited, in fact, that--yeah, you guessed it--he has to go potty. I query the YMCA soccer coordinator about the whereabouts of the potty (I mean, surely you didn't assume that 25 3 and 4 year-olds who just mobbed the soccer fields wouldn't have to pee at some point?!?)

With a smile, he points to a tipped-over port-o-potty in the distance and says, "That port-o-potty blew over recently, and "they" were supposed to pick it back up. Maybe the church (where the fields are located) is open?"

Huh?!? Who's "they"? Even if "they" did put the port-o-potty up on it's proper side, would I really want my son to go in there, lest the flesh-eating bacteria consume him like those scarabs from "The Mummy"?

Guess what? Surprise! The church isn't open. Again, I don't know why they wouldn't want a tribe of 3 and 4 year-olds roaming around inside after business hours?

By this time, poor Big Brother has had an accident, being unable to hold it any longer, and lacking an inconspicuous place to "water the grass." Fortunately, we have a spare pair of underwear. Unfortunately, the only pair of sweats we have are now mildly soaked (and it's an uncharacteristically chilly day). Of course, Big Brother refuses to wear the hooded sweatshirt that would at least cover-up some of his pee-soaked pants.

Again, I imagine the impression I'm about to make on the parents:

"Hi, I'm your child's soccer coach. This is my son, Big Brother. He, uh, spilled some water on his pants because he was so excited about meeting everyone. Yeah, that's it."

Amazingly, everyone on the team has arrived within 5 minutes of the start time. Even some people who weren't on our team tried to practice with us. Apparently, either we looked very official and organized (doubtful), or they didn't know what the heck they were doing (much more likely).

We shoo off the "spies" from the other teams, and start out with some "circle time" to do introductions. I try to get everyone "pumped up" about having fun playing soccer. The parents do a nice job of introducing their children, who appear too struck with fear to speak, and cling all the more tightly to their parents.

And so, we move on to do some "drills", which are basically games that covertly teach some soccer skills. I had planned to do 3 different drills for about 5 minutes each.

If only I'd remembered that the attention span of the average 3 or 4 year-old is about 0.02 seconds.

So we've finished the drills, and I'm 14.94 minutes ahead of schedule. (Okay, not really.)

Everyone's favorite drill was "road trip." The idea is we go jog to one corner of the field, pretending that we're going on a vacation, and the kids are supposed to dribble their ball with them to our destination. The team did a good job of carrying their soccer balls with them. One boy just kept going, and didn't want to return when it was time to "come back home." Fortunately, we didn't have to call for search-and -rescue, but instead just used a lasso.

The drills are livened up by at least 1 child at a time (they took turns) crying about not wanting to participate, unable to tell anyone what they were upset about.

After the drills, we attempt to scrimmage. The team's first game is in 10 days, and so I'm trying to give them an idea of how a game might go (or not go, whichever the case may be).

We pick teams. Our league is 3 on 3 (no goalies), so we divide our 6 players evenly. The highlight is the boy who I will forever call in my mind "The Ladies' Man", who picks the 2 girls as his teammates without blinking. Even the parents laugh.

The scrimmage pretty much consists of Big Brother's team running off the field to get their soccer balls, and the other team standing around not knowing what to do, and then following Big Brother's lead. (It became readily apparent that each child must have their own ball at all times, or practice will consist of everyone crying).

Can we play a game with six soccer balls on the field simultaneously?

Did I mention that through most of practice I ended up carrying Little Brother, who was screaming his head off, inconsolably, because he hasn't seen Dad-E all day (who drove straight from work to practice)? Poor Busy-Mom-E.

It's okay, though. You use your feet, not your hands, when playing soccer.

Anyway, we get to try it again at our next practice on Thursday.

If my life were a reality tv show right now, I imagine it'd look a lot like the the Little League scenes from the movie "Parenthood".

See you on Friday,
Busy-Dad-E