soccer mom

i am not sure what the exact definition of a 'soccer mom' is (although i believe it has something to do with politicians wanting your vote.) but i am sure that i come close to it if it means that you want so badly for you children to enjoy running around kicking a ball that you would do anything to help them accomplish this. including but not limited to buying equipment, driving them to and from games and practices, cheering for them no matter how good or not so good they are and accepting a plea from the city's recreation department to be your child's soccer coach because they don't have enough coaches for all the kids that signed up.
let's just say that i must now be referred to as coach jill. i have a wonderful team. it consists of 8 5 and 6 year olds including my little anais. we have only 2 girls and the rest are boys.
the first practice was a little jumbled but i have quickly gotten the hang of finding thrilling enough activities to keep 8 small children engaged for an hour while sneaking in the learning of soccer skills. you are probably thinking "wow coach jill must be an amazing soccer player to be able to coach these young impressionable little people in the art of soccer playing" and you would be wrong. i am okay. i don't know all the rules or all the terminology but i am learning. if anything i think the fact that i am good with kids makes up for my lack of knowledge. as one mom put it after our first practice- "you must teach preschool or kindergarten. you just have a way of talking to kids." "no," i said "i'm just trying to make up for the fact that i know nothing about soccer." i figure if the kids finish the season having learned nothing about soccer at least they will look back fondly and think " wow, coach jill sure knows how to communicate well with children."

this is me giving the kids some directions

so this last weekend was our first game. now, i would like to point out that there are only 3 players on our team who had ever played soccer before. the only thing these other kiddos know is what i have taught them. lets just say... we totally won! now technically we don't keep score but every kid keeps count. they all did great. my little team has so much heart! they worked their little tails off.


i will now be switching from coach jill to mom.... ana scored our teams first goal. it was the first time she has ever scored a goal in her 3 seasons of soccer so far. she was awesome. she worked so hard and we are so proud of her. after ana's game we had vera's game. she also did great. she really jumped in there and helped her team to victory. we are very proud of her too. my girls rock!




ricky is playing hockey again and has started games this week. more to come on that in another post.
all in all i think i will survive being ana's soccer coach but will they survive being my little minions? hehehe...  i will let you all know.