Soccer on the Side

After a long couple of sessions where my 5 year old son C was coaching soccer for toddlers along with my 7 year old daughter E, C wanted to stop coaching altogether. he thought it was boring and wanted to actually play soccer if he could kick around the ball. The problem was that if he tried to play, he would crush these toddlers and they would hate soccer forever.

To fix the situation, I took E to coach and played soccer with C on the side. One morning, my 1 year old son L wanted to tag along. My wife asked if I really wanted to take all the kids with me and I said of course (against my better judgement). Off we went!

What I was most worried about was that L would be whining after 20 minutes to go home. It was hard to keep him entertained, but I was up for the challenge. When we got there, we had a few balls with us to get some games started. I kicked around the ball with C and then had L chase around the ball. He also wanted to lay down when he got extra tired. They both liked it when I tried to shoot the ball into a basketball hoop as well.

E was busy with her soccer coaching and every now and then, we would go over and peek at what she was doing. Luckily, L wasn’t too interested in running over there to disrupt the soccer session. We were having too much fun playing. C had a great time too kicking the ball around with me and doing some really long passes.

At the end of the session, it was time to go home. I got all the kids in the car to drive home. I think everyone had a great time, especially me. It’s rare that all the kids were occupied and having fun without any huge tantrums or fights. These kinds of periods are what makes parenthood amazing. I definitely wish there were a lot more of these in our household!