Soccer star!

Besides some art camps, Olivia was 7 the first time she officially joined a sport. And she absolutely loves karate, but we weren’t keen on spending the money on Emelia to try something at her age.

But Chris found this summer rec program through the city that was a six-week soccer league, one evening a week. We bought a ball, cleats, shin guards, and socks and hauled everyone off one evening after dinner to sit on a blanket and watch a bunch of 3-year-olds attempt to play soccer.

And oh, was it cute. Chris went out onto the field with her since parents were encouraged to be out there too with their kid, and I sat on the blanket feeding the baby while Olivia ditched all of us to go play on the playground with a bunch of other kids. 

The baby who by the way was obsessed with his car seat strap one evening and couldn’t stop smiling at it.

And Emelia turned out to not be so bad at soccer. For a 3-year-old. Really, it was actually kind of impressive watching her dribbling the ball. They did a tiny scrimmage the last two sessions which was hilarious to watch because instead of each kid kicking their soccer ball around in drills, they were suddenly down to one and all had to share.

They also had to be nice to their fellow teammates and not steal the ball and shout in their faces or push and shove or anything like that. One girl would burst into tears and run to her mom every time something came and stole the ball from her. One kid was way too competitive for three years old and kept knocking into the other kids to steal their ball, including his own teammates and the mom wasn’t doing much to stop him.

But Emelia scored a goal one time (in the right net to boot) and actually seemed like she has a little talent for soccer. She also said she loves it and wants to do it again next summer. Chris had even gotten in on the action when he coached them one night when the regular coach needed to be out and that was pretty adorable.

She chose NOT to smile in her individual photos. Actually, I’m IN it, trying to convince her to smile for the camera as she was in a mood and acting terrified of the whole thing. And the team photo is a hot mess of crying kids and kids pointing out their parents and overall, I can’t wait to order them for the memories.

They all got a medal at the end of the program which I kind of internally roll my eyes at because of the whole every-kid-gets-a-medal-thing, but it was really cute and she’s so proud of it.

So who knows? Maybe we have a future soccer star on our hands, or maybe we just got lucky and hit on the sport that Emelia wants to really do and is passionate about. But we’ll definitely be doing it next year.