End of soccer season

Last night was the very last soccer game of the season for the "Kicks." It was a beautiful fall evening, clear with just a slight hint of coolness in the air.

Warming up.

Jeremiah liked to take charge during warm up time. He always ended up in the goal position, loudly telling all the other boys what to do. Notice Nathaniel in there? He was convinced he was on the team since coach Neal always let him practice with them. He can hardly wait until next year when he can officially be on a team.

Running, running, running.....

Jeremiah really enjoyed playing defense this year. He understood his task and did it with great gusto. However, once he kicked the ball away he thought his job was done and proceeded back to stand exactly on his assigned spot to wait for someone to approach him again.

As much as he loved defense, he loved playing goalie better. He was pretty good at it too. Something about it just seemed to make sense to him.

The trophy.

Jeremiah still has his trophy from last year in a place of pride next to his bed. He was so excited to get another trophy this year. Nathaniel pitched an all out screaming fit (in the middle of Pizza Hut and all the way home) when he realized that he wasn't going to get a trophy. Jeremiah in a beautiful, unprompted, act of generosity gave (as in gave for good) Nathaniel his trophy from last year. When I told him how proud I was of him for being so kind and generous he said, "Well, I just really want my brother to be happy." My eyes got teary at that moment.

After the game we ended up with a van full of boys since Levi (Jeremiah's team mate) and his brother Riley (Nathaniel's buddy) wanted to ride with us. It was a loud and crazy ride. But Aaron and I were smiling silly at each other as we listened to the friendly play and chatter (and punching and yelling) that were coming from the back. It feels good to watch our sons make friends. It feels good for us to make new friends outside of church. It feels good to be riding to Pizza Hut with a van full of boys who are loud and crazy and anticipating eating cake. :-)

A few interesting notes:
* One night when I was tucking Jeremiah into bed after a game he told me that he liked games better than practice because his team always wins. Interested to hear his definition of winning I asked him how he knew his team had won. "Well, because we always have fun and try our best!" was his confident answer. I told him that was true, but that another way to win a game was to be the team who scored the most goals. He looked at me like I was crazy and didn't know what I was talking about.
It is funny how at this age it is pretty clear that some kids have a competitive spirit and others don't. Some kids get on the field and really attack the ball and are intent on scoring goals. Others (like Jeremiah) have some concept of the game, but really just want to run around and cheer excitedly when a team mate scores a goal.

* Last night I noticed that when Jeremiah played offense he was running up the field, parallel to his team mates and on the opposite side of the field from the ball. So later that night I asked him what he was doing. "Well, I had a plan," came the immediate answer, "I thought that if I could go fast around the guys in the black shirts we could make a trap and keep them away from the ball. So even though I was away from the ball I could get closer to the ball in the end when the black team was trapped. But no one on my team was cooperating." Pretty good strategy for a 5 year old!

* Halfway through the season we were having some trouble with Jeremiah getting into trouble on the sidelines, pushing and kicking. So we had pretty much laid down the law, if we saw him hitting or kicking we were leaving immediately. At one point during a game I looked over and saw that Jeremiah had organized a game of "duck, duck, goose" with the kids waiting on the sidelines. It was hilarious to watch. After that he organized them all to cheer, "GOOAAALLL!!!!" loudly for a good 5 minutes.

So it was a good soccer season. We all made new friends and we all had fun. Jeremiah learned a lot more about the game of soccer. He also learned a lot about getting along with other people. We will have our Monday and Tuesday evening's back, but we will miss the opportunity we had to socialize and enjoy being outside and involved in something together. We are retiring the cleats until next year when we will have 2 boys on different teams. Oh my!

Note: I was going to wait to post this until I had time to edit the pictures. But since I know that will never happen I just put them up "as is."