Soccer

Marcus, being an excellent soccer player himself, was very excited about signing Caleb up for soccer after he turned three. He asked me to find a program for Caleb, and I searched, but couldn't find one that would accept 3-year-olds. Everyone wanted them to be closer to four (3 years and 9 months, to be exact). I told Marcus that no one would let him play until he was a little older, and we thought that door was closed. A little later we found out that Caleb's good buddy, Matthew, was signed up with Birmingham United program. Matthew's mother told me that this program will take children as long as they've turned three.

So we signed him up, bought all the gear, and showed up for the first day. It was a disaster. Caleb whined and cried throught the whole hour. He hated the over-crowded field (12 or more preschool games going on at once on one giant field), way-too-many people telling him what to do, and most of all, the fact that no one was "sharing" with him. Apparently three years of incessant "sharing" indoctrination is not easily replaced with "just push your way in there and take it from them!" He was crushed by the fact that every time he got the ball, someone would run in and take it away from him. It never failed to reduce him to tears of indignation.

After that complete debacle, we spent multiple evenings playing soccer with him and emphasizing that it is okay to take the ball from each other in soccer. (We've kicked soccer balls around as a family for over a year, but in a very low-key way with no "stealing" the ball.) Anyway, the next time he played went much better. He enjoyed the drills a lot...every child has his own ball and he did great with following the instructions and handling the ball. But he still did not like the second half where the boys were divided into teams to scrimmage. He didn't cry or whine when others took the ball away, but he kept saying that it was not fun and he wanted to go home. At one point, he and his buddy Matthew just sat down on the field and started pulling out grass by the handfuls and throwing it at each other while the other kids played around them. They were having a blast, but it certainly didn't look anything like soccer! I leaned over and said to my friend (Matthew's mommy), "Maybe this is why it was so hard to find a league that would take 3-year-olds!" She laughed and agreed.

So we definitely jumped the gun a little on getting him into organized sports, but no harm has been done since we aren't putting any pressure on him. Just a little wasted money :) Regardless, he looks really cute in his little uniform, and he does have a lot of fun with the drills.