First Soccer Game (AKA: DISASTER)

You know those days when everyone wakes up happy and everything is sunshine and rainbows and oh-my-gosh-this-is-why-I-had-children? Today was not one of those days.

Having to set an alarm on a Saturday morning is never fun, but we didn't think we would need it. Brenden is usually up long before 7 am, which would have been just fine today. Oh no...not this morning. We had to open his door and make a ton of noise to finally wake him up closer to 7:30 am. (Yes, I know that is a weird way to wake him up. However, we've found it to be much easier than actually going in there and getting him up. No idea why.) We begged Brenden to eat a granola bar, shoved a banana at Lauren, grabbed our coffees, and headed out the door for Brenden's first soccer game.

I knew Lauren would be a problem. I expected her to freak out and be crazy because we wouldn't let her play. I did not expect Brenden to FREAK OUT the moment the game started because someone kicked the ball away from him. All of those lectures about sharing and taking turns really stuck in his head so he could not understand why suddenly it was okay for someone to kick the ball away from him. He spent most of the game crying, some of it sitting down with us, and a small percentage of it actually playing and having fun.

"But I want the ball!"

During all of this, Lauren managed to knock my coffee over onto my already malfunctioning camera. (Why, camera, why!?!) She screamed. She kicked. She threw banana everywhere. This led us to decide that, even though it stinks, to save our sanity one of us will stay at home with her for his games.

It wasn't all bad. For a few minutes Brenden decided to have fun and he scored the only goal for his team. He ran all the way back to Tim, fist pumping high in the air, with the biggest smile on his face. I thought he would enjoy the rest of the game, but he went right back to being upset over who knows what.

Getting ready to kick off.

And of course, no soccer game would be complete without someone making a spectacular dive out of a tiny bump. Brenden has mastered this and he did not disappoint. Another player brushed against him and he flung himself sideways like he had been punched. We couldn't help but laugh.

Brenden is at the front. Go Brenden!

We're going to watch as much soccer as possible and talk to him about how the game will be. I guess for his first game ever it wasn't completely terrible, but it was plenty stressful. Our fingers and toes are crossed for a lot more fun and a lot less tears next week.