Right. As I mentioned, I spent my weekend immersed in soccer. Since it was the Soccer Festival opening weekend, Hayley had four games. Saturday she had a game at 8 and 1, and then Sunday she had one at 11 and another at 3. On Sunday we actually spent most of the day at the park because our coach had suggested we could all do a picnic; it ended up being just our family, his family, and one other family, but it was still nice and it was probably better than coming home for two hours, just to go back again.

Something crazy happened to me this weekend while I was there.

Like I said in this post, the coach had asked for a volunteer parent to help him with the team. I went straight up after the evening wrapped up to say I’d be happy to do it. I thought it would be a good way to get involved (anyone want to take bets on how little time it will take me to sign up for the parent committee at the school this fall?) and also, since I tend to be shy around strangers, I figured it would help push me to get to know the other parents on the team.

What I didn’t realize was that I wouldn’t just be a glorified babysitter, taking care of the girls who weren’t actively playing on the field. See, when he called me the “assistant coach” I thought it was just a big name to make me feel all important. I call Hayley my assistant chef when she dumps a bowl of chopped onion into a pot of sauce. She’s not really cooking, but it makes her feel good to be called an important name. That’s what I was thinking I would be. But no. Apparently he meant that I would be the literal assistant coach.

Uhh… Okay!

It ended up being so much fun. I never would have volunteered had I known what I would end up doing because I would have figured that I wasn’t qualified to do it. I’m glad I didn’t know ahead of time because I am enjoying myself so much.

The 8 am game was spent mostly just watching and trying to entertain Breanna who was a little tired. At the end of the game, he asked me if I’d be ready to help him at the 1 pm game, and I said sure, still thinking I would just hang out with the non-playing girls on the sidelines. When we showed up at 12:45 that afternoon, I was just standing around with George and our friends when the coach called over to me and asked if I’d come and help him guide the girls through their warm-up.

I did and that was pretty easy, just getting them to do their jumping jacks and some stretches, and translating for the girls who are better in English than French (though he speaks both). Then he had me help pair them up to practice kicking balls back and forth to each other. Once the game started, I sat down and got the girls to cheer for our team. I thought I was basically done with my duties when he suddenly asked me if I could replace him on the field for a few minutes. My reaction was a loud, “WHAT?!” I reminded him that I’ve never played soccer but he assured me that it was easy, tossed a ball at me, and left me. Alone with a bunch of soccer girls in the middle of a field. No pressure, not at all. Luckily our neighbor was coaching the opposing team so I just sort of did what he did. And I survived.

On Sunday I did a repeat of that for the morning game and also, all the girls were starting to get to know me so that was fun. At one point I actually had one girl sitting on my lap while two others rushed to sit beside me. That was cute.

Unfortunately, by 2:30 clouds had rolled in and by the time our game started at 3 it was raining. We had them play for 45 minutes before they called it off (every two minutes someone was falling down because of the wet grass). The opposing team only had three girls so we had some of ours play for them, including Hayley who was pretty ticked off at being put on another team. Despite the rain, I was really busy for that one, actually running up and down the field and stopping the game to set up offside kicks. I learned some of the rules and even though I was soaked and freezing, I had a really good time doing it.

When it was all over, all the parents who passed me thanked me and all the kids said goodbye to me. It was crazy, how did this happen? I never would have guessed that inside this fairly sedentary body lurked a soccer fiend.

Of course, not being in any kind of shape meant that I was feeling it on Monday. One of our warm-up exercises is to hop like a frog from one sideline to the other. I did that several times over the weekend. Let’s just say that yesterday I was hobbling. I’m mostly better today. If nothing else, doing this will get me back into shape.

She doesn’t have any games now until next week and the schedule will be much more sane. She plays Mondays and sometimes Wednesdays after supper, so it won’t be four games in two days anymore.

Still, I can’t help but wish she was playing tomorrow so I wouldn’t have to wait so long. I guess I’m going to do okay with this Soccer Mom thing.

Hayley listening to the coach on Saturday morning: