This fall Cooper played soccer as his first team sport. His season was a looooong one, going from the middle of August to the middle of November. With hour long practices twice a week and games on Saturday, we kinda felt like we were living and breathing soccer around here for 12 weeks. Cooper wanted to play t-ball, but I thought he'd do better at that in the spring, and convinced him to play soccer instead. It was often tough to pull him away from the baseball fields we had to pass to get to the soccer fields, and I wondered whether I'd done the right thing. But we got through it.
Cooper's team was the Green Gators. (We didn't get the email about picture day being changed, so Coop wasn't in his game uniform for pictures. We had to borrow a jersey from someone else, hence the red shorts and socks, and blue jersey in the individual picture.)
L to R: Katie, Brendan, Cooper, Jesse, Coach, Jackson, Alli
Coop was quite the soccer player, and his skills increasingly improved throughout the season.
One night after soccer practice the sunset was bright pink. It's not often we get to see sunsets around here what with all the trees, so Coop wanted a picture. My phone's camera doesn't do it justice.
There were a couple of kids who were REALLY good, and were pretty big ball hogs, even taking the ball from their own teammates. But when they weren't there, it was an entirely different game, and the rest of the kids had a lot more fun.
Cooper's attention span was short, and so usually about halfway through practice or a game, he'd stop playing soccer and start playing with one of the other kids. His favorite thing to do was chase his teammate, Alli, who was barely old enough to play at 3-1/2 and who hardly wanted to play. The two of them would often run and chase each other, and tackle each other. He can be quite the little flirt, but also still doesn't understand that girls don't like to wrestle and be pummeled like boys do. But Alli was a tough cookie and dished out just as much as Coop did.
Other times Cooper was right in there. His last game of the season the ball hogs weren't there, and so Cooper got a lot of play time.
He scored four goals that game, twice dribbling all the way down field from near the other team's goal. One of those he completely stole and the other he intercepted.
He dribbled so well that he got a good lead from the pack.
Go Cooper!
He kicks...
...he scores! G.O.A.L!!!!!
This is all the kids at their last game, with their two coaches.
A week after the trophy ceremony, Cooper is still carrying his trophy around the house.
Now that soccer is over, we have our Saturday mornings back, but T/Th nights are now filled with swimming lessons. Thus begins the rest of our years with boys---sports, sports, sports. Go Coop!
No comments:
Post a Comment