September 11, 2005 - Sunday
Now we've finally joined the community. Harry's first soccer practice and game were today and it is where the town comes together. I'd been told that before, but it's really true because seemingly every family with kids Harry's age descends on the same set of small, close together soccer fields at the same time. There are 10 teams in the 4-6 year-old league and they are all playing at the same time, and the parents are all there, too.

I'm going to say that Harry enjoyed soccer, but he was never as enthusiastic has he was when he started playing T-Ball. That could just be that he's older and more sage, but I think it has to do with the nature of the game. In T-Ball everybody gets their turn. In soccer, the kids constantly fight for the ball, hopefully not with their own teammates but usually that, too, and Harry is neither fast nor overly agressive by nature. He had his share of chances with the ball, but they come and go quickly. During halftime I commended Harry on being such a good teammate and not fighting for the play with the other orange shirts, but suggested he could and should fight hard for the ball when the red team had it. But, I think it's really more about skills and quickness. I really had neither when I was a kid starting to play soccer and it made me shy about it. That's trouble in soccer. We'll see if he's interested in working on that at home.

I think there were ten kids on Harry's team and they took turns subbing in and out of two simultaneous 3-on-3 games on side-by-side fields. The picture above left is of Harry waiting to kick-off the second half of the second game and it was a rare moment of personal importance. He actually made a great play to clear the ball out of his own end during this game, although another faster boy on his team picked up the ball and dribbled it all the way to the other end for a goal with Harry following behind. Harry was still very excited that his team scored and I told him later that it was his play that made it all happen, but it's hard to say whether getting an assist comes off as anything other than idle praise to a five-year-old. I suppose it's most important that he just had fun just running around the field and that we started socializing with friends and neighbors.


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