The first soccer game

One word: hilarious. OK, lots more words. Gummy Bear had his first soccer game of the fall.

He looks very dapper, doesn't he?

While I'm amazed by how far the kiddos have come in the past few weeks, it was still a lot of this:

Everyone ... after the ball!

There was a kid on the other team who was clearly the star player. He made several goals and was the only one who seemed to have a clue beyond "kick the ball." There was a kid on Bear's team who was pretty good too. He would get the ball away from the pack and dribble it all the way down the field ... into the wrong goal. Three times. They play something called "small-sided" games. What this means is that there are 4 players from a team on the field at any given time. The 5th sits the sidelines until a substitution is needed. Thank goodness for that, because at 4, substitutions are frequent ... for meltdowns over water, because they couldn't touch the ball with their hands, because they were "tired," and because they saw something distracting on the sidelines (squirrel!).

Doesn't he look like he knows what he's doing?

He had lots of support. My mom and stepdad were there, as were some old friends who had come to spend  the night with us. My voice was actually a little hoarse last night from all the cheering.

Go Bear, go!

While Bear spent the first half of the game in the pack, he spend the second half guarding the goal. Unfortunately, at this age the teams aren't allowed to have goalies. That didn't stop Bear though. He's a born goalie in the land of no goalies.

Ready!

Cheeky Monkey was a bit hard to contain. He ran out onto the field twice. Thankfully, Gpa was there to distract him with a muffin and a hat.

Puffy vests are very slimming.

When the game was over the kids all got goldfish and Capri Sun. I'm pretty sure this was Bear's favorite part of the game. Still, it was a funny, funny 45 minutes. I'm looking forward to next week.