Soccer Mom

And so it begins our round the world experience to as many sports as possible. Although I’m afraid that this will only mean that I will forever be the Queen of Shlep, Mommy chauffeur, or Carpool Goddess, I’m still committed to trying to encourage Drew’s many interests.

This weekend marked the first of our life in soccer, and I’m officially a Soccer Mom! With all the excitement, modeling of the uniform and talk about the game, I was very happy to finally start the season. There are two coaches and five kids playing three on three soccer without a goalie. The dynamic of three kids wrestling a soccer ball seemed like something that would be either very tragic or very entertaining.

Drew will never be one of those kids that sits idly by. He will never be one of those kids that is understated. He will never be one of those kids that is shy. And for all of those things (and more), I love him. However, I worry about how other teachers, coaches and supervisors take in those attributes. Drew has no problem steam rolling every other kid or authoritative figure to get exactly what he wants. And the soccer field was no exception to that.

The biggest challenge came in the fact that he had to sit on the sidelines for two out of the four quarters. At the risk of sounding like a judgmental parent, I think part of the reason he sat out for half the game was that he was on the nerves of one of the coaches. He was on his nerves for being what is great about Drew, he was on his nerves for exactly what will make Drew successful in life – his enthusiasm and aggressive nature. With patience and understanding, we tried very hard to explain to Drew how it’s equally as important to cheer for his team members as it is to score on the field. Shockingly he was not buying it…

When he finally got his second opportunity to play, he was checked out. I’m not positive if his lack of interest was attributed to his break from the field or the fact that there was a kid out there that was incredibly good. Drew is used to being the star, and he wasn’t. It seemed like he just gave up trying.

As someone who has battled those same demons, it was very sad to watch him go through it. The more everyone cheered for the four year old soccer star, the more Drew stopped running for the ball. The more the four year old star had the ball, the more Drew started spacing out. Some onlookers may think that this was a classic case of a four year old having too much of soccer for one day, but I know better. There’s no such thing where Drew is concerned!

Fortunately we have a lot more weeks to work on skills, we have a lot more time to win the coach over and we have many more sporting events to realize that he’s not always going to be the star of the show. I just hope at the end of it all, he is still the same vibrant kid with his passion for sports.