Soccer Slowdown
Monday, December 7th, 2009You may recall that Brady started soccer a few weeks ago. We enrolled in a six week program. The first two weeks he was SO into the sport. He ran, sweated, and counted the hours until soccer. And slowly his enthusiasm has slowed down. We are now a few weeks past the final week of class. I plan to enroll him again when he is older, if he requests.
His favorite part was the play area that was attached to the indoor field (think McDonald’s playland but super-sized). Brady would interrupt the coach several times during practice to ask if he was allowed to go play at the “park.” I slowly realized that THIS was the only reason he wanted to come to soccer – to play at the play area!
Each week you could see him just pooping out, bit by bit! By the final week of class, he came out after ten minutes, lay on the bench and said he was just too tired. When Coach called him back on the field, my son (in front of all of the parents and team) went on for about 3-4 minutes straight about wondering the point of this game. In Brady’s words (with his hands thrown up in the air) “I just don’t get it, I run one way, then I run the other way, I try to kick one ball into this big net, then I just do it all over again. What is the point.”
His coach was holding back his own laugh. While this mother was mortified and blushing, the other parents all found him hilarious. Yeah, listening to that made me realize that maybe he just isn’t the athletic type, or maybe we haven’t found a good match yet. He is only 3 (ok, almost 4), so we have plenty of time. Maybe he will be into music or academics more than sports, and that is just fine. He is perfect just the way he is. I can still be a “soccer mom” even if my kid doesn’t play soccer – right?