Goooooooooal!!!

Excuse my indulgence in a bit of a brag on my kid, but I have to do it - Katie scored her first goal today! She was so excited that she literally bounced back to mid-field for kickoff.

Her team practices every Saturday for 15 minutes, then they play a game. That's it. No weekday practices, not much formal coaching. They play 3-on-3, so it's pretty personal out there, much like no-holds barred wrestling on a soccer field, pre-school style. The quarters are pretty predictable - the kids tend to run back and forth a dozen or so times, with 1-2 kids just kind of running in circles, another scratching places that shouldn't be scratched in public and maybe one picking his/her nose while running. There's occasional violence (the coach's son on our team is VERY good, but roughs up the others all the time in the process of getting the ball), a lot of drama (at least 3 good bouts of outright bawling I've seen thus far, including Katie's in her second game because she hadn't made a goal yet), and no shortage of over-enthusiastic coaches reliving their childhood. I never fail to get at least one good belly laugh that brings tears to my eyes while watching from the sidelines.

Katie is great at dribbling, but has been very shy and lacked confidence until today. After that goal, she was in there, on the ball, running her hardest and dribbled all the way across the field several times - she's actually really good! (This I was very unsure of until today). Obviously, this comes from her dad, since I never played a team sport growing up.

Yay, Katie!! I was so proud when you scored that I got tears in my eyes - and this time it wasn't from laughing, it was from pride. Guess it's time for this mommy to go out, buy the minivan and get the soccer magnet to make it official - I'm a proud soccer mom!