Summer Sports

At the start of the summer we were trying to decide what we would do about getting Noah involved in some sports (read: team) activities. His friends' parents were having the same thoughts when one set of parents had a great idea. Why don't we just get together and let the kids 'play'? There was no charge to play and no pressure on the kids to perform to any level. They just got exposed to soccer and t-ball and had a blast doing it. Brant's dad is a phys ed teacher and had a lot of equipment available and he was willing and able to put together some pratices for the kids. Coach Larry did a great job and became a bit of a celebrity in the process. (We all got together at a kiddie play area this summer and thought the kids were having a good time - until Coach Larry showed up. The kids were so excited to see him they could barely contain themselves. It was pretty cute.) You may remember that Noah had tried soccer before but had some trouble staying on task, so to speak. (Not all his fault as I don't think the coaches were prepared to work with such young children.) So it was fun to see him try again and actually participate in things like warm up exercises. He pretty much decided he wanted to be the all-time goalie and had a hard time agreeing to play other positions (or let other kids have a try at goalie). Luckily, most of the kids were pretty easy-going and didn't seem to mind. Another advantage to it not being 'organized' was that Benajmin got to try his hand at it also. Noah wasn't excited that his little brother was going to be playing with the big kids but Benjamin was not put off by him. (Although it was Noah's idea to let Benj wear his second soccer shirt. The rain boots, though? All Benjamin's idea.) And we do suspect that everybody's favorite part of practice was snack break. We were very lucky that we were able to participate in this this summer. Much thanks to Whitney and Larry for putting it all together for us.