Ashley and Soccer

I've been eager to get my kids into fall soccer.  So when Everett came home from his first days of school with a flyer for a local soccer club, I jumped on it.

I signed Everett and Ashley both up.  I knew Everett would love soccer, but I wasn't so sure about Ashley.

Ashley loved wearing her new shin guards, soccer socks, and a soccer ball.  She used Everett's old silver nikes, found silver shorts to match, and announced that her soccer nickname is Silver Lightning.

With all of those cool duds, Ashley was all set.  She happily participated in the warm-up run.

And played a couple of the fun warm-up games.  (The team also did a "fishy dance" to warm up, which Ashley scowled about later.  "It was just so silly!" She insisted.)

But after a few minutes, she began to lag behind.

Pretty soon all the glory shots I envisioned capturing looked more like this.  Do you see that little pink lump waaaaaay off to the right?  That is our Ashley.  I have a million more photos that look just like this.

Toward the end of the practice, Ashley was joined by another little girl who must have agreed with Ashley's philosophy.

I reminded Ashley every drink break that she should play close attention to her coach.  Interestingly enough, he is British and his accent makes his soccer expertise sound quite important.  However, Ashley couldn't find it in herself to participate.  I don't know if she was bored, intimidated, or apathetic (most likely a mixture of the three), but soccer definitely seemed to have lost its luster in her mind.  Gone was Silver Lightning; regular Ashley had taken her place.

We will see if Silver Lightning makes a comeback when they play an actual game.

Ashley did like one part of practice, and that was organizing the cones and the balls.

Everett enjoyed his practice very much.  Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of him playing because Joel was there and didn't think he could get any good photos through the fence.

Everett had been very encouraging to Ashley early that morning.  "You'll do great!" he enthused, "You're pretty good for a four-year-old."  She seemed to believe him (until it came time to actually play, that is).  And when it was time for the four-year-olds to play, Everett leaned against the fence and sighed.  "There go the little kids," he said fondly.  

"Aren't you a little kid?"  I asked.

"No, I'm a big kid!" Everett replied, as though I had lost my brain.

Well, we sure do love our Ashley.  She is wonderful at so many things.

Right now, liking soccer is just not one of them.  This is too bad, because there are five more weeks to go, but maybe that will give her enough time to warm up to it.