Last night George stayed home with Breanna and his dad and I took Hayley to her second to last soccer game. There’s one more game next week, and then the season is over although I think our team may be participating in an extra tournament. I’m sad that it’s almost over. I enjoy soccer although at this age it’s nothing like the older teams. Her team consists of girls ages 4-6, they only play four against four, there are no referees, and there are no official goalies (of course any of the girls can run in front of the net to try to block it like a goalie would). It’s not about competition, it’s about having fun and learning to play as a team. It’s kind of funny because none of them really get the concept of passing the ball to a teammate, so it’s just a bunch of girls running up and down the field, randomly kicking to get the ball down to the goal.

Hayley really likes it too. For awhile I was thinking of not re-enrolling her next year because she didn’t seem that enthused. If you asked her, she would insist she loved it, but out on the field, she would run half-heartedly and more often than not she would suddenly throw herself dramatically on the ground, claiming that she “fell” but it was just her way of being the class (team?) clown. Between the dramatic tumbling and the fact that she would do somersaults any chance she got, I was actually thinking of foregoing soccer in favor of gymnastics next year.

I don’t want to overwhelm her with activities, and with school starting in just two weeks (!), I don’t want to sign her up for anything in the Fall. In the Winter, I’d really like to get her into swimming lessons, and there’s an arena nearby that has extremely reasonable prices and is apparently quite good. I’ve also always wanted to get her involved in the Sparks/Brownies/Girl Guides organization because I loved it as a kid and bet she would too, but I don’t think that will happen until next year.

Either way, i had pretty much written off soccer as a possibility.

And then, wouldn’t you know it, with only two games left in the season, something suddenly clicked with Hayley and she got it a bit more. She’s still very hesitant when there’s a group of girls kicking to get control of the ball all at once; she’ll run up and then stop because she doesn’t want to get into the middle of it. However, last night she was more assertive than I h ad seen her all season. She did goof around a bit, she did talk to her friends too much on the field, but she kicked that ball too. Twice she was the one who kicked the ball back into play after the ball went out of bounds and she delivered a good, strong kick each time. And several times, when the ball found its way to her she kicked them ball, trying to get it towards the goal. (One time she kicked the ball the wrong way in the confusion of eight girls trying to get to the ball, but even if she had scored on her own team I would have applauded anyway, just like we did when one of her teammates actually DID score in the wrong net.)

It’s a shame that it took until almost the end of the season for her to gain enough confidence to really start getting involved. If we had another month of twice-a-week games left, I think she would even get to a point where she would be more willing to chase after the ball. I think it’s partly an age thing; a couple of the girls are older, six years old, who were playing for their second year, and they were the ones to aggressively go after the ball and get it down the field.

We have until next February to decide what we want to do for next year (and of course, we’ll ask Hayley what SHE wants to do) but I’m not opposed to doing soccer again next summer; now I’m seeing how she might understand better next year and have even more fun.

I know I’m going to miss it after the season closes, either way. It’s been fun screaming and applauding on the side for all our girls. Good thing I won’t have time to miss it too much since I’ll be so distracted with SCHOOL starting. Sheesh.