It's Official--I'm a Soccer Mom

It's official. I'm now a true soccer mom. Josiah had his first practice today.

Yesterday we travelled to the German sports store Decathlon, to pick out cleats and shinguards. I also bought an enormous pair of white knee socks for him and a pair of athletic-style shorts. All of his shorts have cargo pockets and I feel are not soccer-appropriate.

When I tried to try his new duds on him yesterday, he threw a fit and didn't want anything to do with shinguards and special socks. But today, when the time came for him to get dressed, he hopped to it with zest and though I told him he didn't actually have to wear his shinguards while we walked to the field, he stated "But Mama, I want to look cool". Oh, he's a boy after my own heart...!

The first thing I learned about soccer is that the shinguards go under the socks. He was one of two children there with his shinguards outside his socks. He's probably already scarred for life because I didn't Google "soccer shinguards" to find out the proper placement. It's probably akin to wearing your underwear outside your shorts.

He ran right out onto the little field and started kicking a ball around. Hans, Annika and I sat on the sidelines and tried not to call out pointers and directions to him. It's going to be hard, I can tell. He was definitely the smallest guy out there. Even the four year old girls are giantesses compared to Josiah. Sigh. I need to be feeding him more liver and onions or something.

So. Practice officially began with some drills, during which a few kids freaked out about this, that or the other. Some felt that they weren't being allowed to kick the ball as much as other kids. Some were accidentally getting hit, pushed or kicked while jostling in the pack.

Josiah? He had a moment when he suddenly realized that he was playing with girls. Oh. My. Goodness. Real, live females. He balked like an old mule and refused to move. The coach had to go over and talk to him. She's no bullshitter, the coach and she told him straight up that he will have to play with the girls or not play soccer at all, at which point he began to see her point and joined back in. But there was a tense moment there during which I cringed, thinking my son was going to become the troublemaker.

Luckily, there was a little girl there that sat down and cried every time things didn't go her way, and when her mother went to remove her from the field, actually kicked, hit and screamed at her mother. Thank you. Thank you for taking the onus from Josiah. I appreciate it.

I almost cried watching him kick the ball around. Even though he's smaller than the rest, he looked so big. I can't believe that my tiny baby is playing soccer. Well, soccer with his hands. We have to work on that this week. NO HANDS. Josiah will work on that and Hans and I will work on not giving suggestions from the sidelines. It's tough though.

Minivan, here I come! Hey, I have to have a place to store the shinguards and soccer ball!