Small But Fierce!

Okay, reusing a title here, and, well, typing the actual post after hitting the "return" key and posting a blank post.

This is a soccer family. I would try to tell you that I played soccer as a kid and was a superstar but that simply isn't the case. I was a swimmer, and I played some baseball. I coached and taught swimming for quite a while. In fact, one night after coaching some swimmers when we lived in Illinois I told my wife, "Don't let me make the boys (only DS#1 and DS#2 were around at the time) swim just because I was a swimmer." We have always tried to encourage the kids to be involved in sports, but the sports that they choose.

DS#1 was initially involved in martial arts, something that, quite honestly, he was much better at than the soccer that he seems to have fallen in love with. It has taken hard work for him to get to his present skill level in soccer, and his desire to improve continues. When DS#2 got involved in soccer I was initially concerned that he would move away from soccer the way he moved away from martial arts because he saw an older brother that played the sport. Instead, DS#2 wants to continue with soccer (and someday American football, but that is another story). Okay, we aren't that surprised, DS#2 is a good soccer player (playing against his older brother clearly helps).

What about DD? Well, last year she decided against soccer in favor of gymnastics and dance. We thought, "Wow, she IS a girlie-girl." This year she is playing soccer again. Not just playing soccer, but playing on a "U8 Academy" team against U9 girls teams and some boys teams. We love watching her develop as a soccer player, and laugh about the things she has clearly learned from watching her brother's games-and maybe hearing her papa's comments. Today she had a 4v4 "Fun Fest" where the split teams into smaller teams to play 4v4 games. DD's team played against older girls and did very well.

DD scored a goal in the first of their 4 games and was pretty excited about it. She returned to her defensive mindset later and clearly got tired out (she had a 7:30 PM game last night and didn't get to bed until late). I just love these few pictures as they show much DD, who is either the smallest, or tied for the smallest, on her team pairs up with "the competition." Our little girl has gotten far more aggressive on the soccer field than her brothers were at this age--maybe older brothers ARE a bonus!

My dear wife took a number of pictures, and I have some "captions" in mind for a few of them so look forward to an addition to the family webpage with a few of them sometime in the near, er, few years...