One Step Forward, One Step Back

Soccer has been interesting thus far. We've had crying, whining, sitting and refusing to budge, and all out tantrums. Part of that was the lovely double ear infection that Brenden was sporting for awhile. (This was the first time he told us his ears hurt and was right. His doctor said he was crazy tough because "most kids would be laying on the floor crying with that type of infection.") The rest was Brenden just not understanding the game. Four years of telling him to share and then expecting him to be okay with someone take a ball away from him was difficult. My bad!

He's had some good days since then, but we've been trying to get him to actually play for the past few weeks. Until now we've been happy if he makes it through a game without crying. Now, we'd like him to actually try to go for the ball instead of just running around staring at his shadow. We promised that we would let him play the Wii if he tried to score a goal. We even promised to buy him a blue slush, his favorite, if he tried really hard the whole game.

I know this may sound like a lot to ask of a 4-year-old, and sometimes I think it is, too. It's just hard to watch the other teams score goal after goal and then our team doesn't manage to score one, even when the other team backs off and lets them score. All of the other teams are so tall compared to the kids on his team and I know that makes a difference. Brenden is the only one that is 4. The rest are 3 years old and we have two that are actually 2. Truthfully, I don't think that's fair, but that's something we can't change.

Onto this past Saturday. We had high hopes since he seemed so excited to play. We cheered and pointed and flung ourselves around like crazy people trying to motivate him to just try his hardest. Eventually, he made a break for the goal and we were jumping up and down like fools...and then a kid from the other team kicked the ball out of bounds. Brenden's entire face fell and he ran off of the field sobbing. We never quite convinced him that it was okay, but we did manage to get him back on the field.

He stole the ball a second time and headed towards the goal...the wrong goal. We tried to tell him to turn around but it was too late. He happily kicked the ball squarely into the net and turned around beaming. We all laughed and cheered as he ran off of the field, pumping his fist in the air. He decided that he deserved a victory lap down the sideline and managed to give every single spectator a high-five.

After that, he was done. He had scored his one goal and was more than happy to sit and watch the rest of the game. I'm still not sure what will convince him to actually play, but we're going to keep trying.

Happy kid, running through the tunnel after the game. :)

We're really ready for him to be able to play football. If there's one thing that Brenden has always been good at, it's knocking people down.