Love the natural smile ;)

Caroline's first game

After 2 practices the Lightning Bolts were ready to play their first game yesterday.  ;)

Our coaches are really great.  They don't take this too seriously.  They teach the girls as we go along, but they never yell at them. They seem to understand that part of coaching Kindergarten girls is being patient with kids who want to talk, dance, and twirl on the field.

The only time I heard either of them yell was when Carlos said, "Girls, run the other way!" An important and necessary redirection.

The team we played? Wowsers. Their head coach was intense, to put it politely.  He screamed at them for everything.  He was in a huff about all of it. 

At one point, we were losing 4 - 0. Our parents were laughing about it. Our sweet girls were having fun... not necessarily excelling.

But then we started to catch up! 4 - 3!! :)

At this point,  the other coach stripped the jersey off his goalie and put someone else in. Then he yelled, "If they score one more, we'll be tied. Get it together!"  The goalie was crying;  we parents were watching in disbelief at the way he shamed this kid.  It was painful.

Much to his relief, I'm sure, we did not score again. We lost 4 - 3. 

At the end of the game, when our girls took a knee to listen to our coach, he said "Did you have fun? Y'all did a good job. And we'll keep practicing so we get even better."

Thank you, Carlos, for TEACHING and ENCOURAGING. :)

GO LIGHTNING BOLTS! 

I'm officially a soccer mom!

Caroline had her first practice today. She loved it!!

And I learned that soccer is a sport I know nothing about.

Turns out that soccer cleats are different from softball cleats.
Hmm.

And shin guards are necessary.
Interesting.

Apparently I'm supposed to bring a ball to practice for drills. I guess I'll be going to Academy.

Questions I was too embarrassed to ask:

Do shin guards go on the inside or outside of the socks? From looking around my money is on "inside". But I'm not certain if those were socks with built-in shin guards.  (That is a thing, right?)

Does it matter what size soccer ball I get? My inclination is to go small... And cute. Do you think they make any with butterflies on them?
......

It works well that Caroline is aggressive and not afraid to go after the ball.  It's fun to watch a kid shorter than the other kids fight for the ball... And then think, "Hey, that's MY kid." :)

She was slow dribbling... (check me out with my official soccer terms).... around the cones but had control at all times, which I thought had to be a good thing.

Or is speed better?

Heck, I don't know.

But yay for Caroline! She has completed the minivan mom by turning me into a soccer mom.

At least for the next 6 weeks. 
It's a short season.