Gracie: Soccer Star?

Grace's first soccer game was last Saturday and we had typical soccer weather: cool and gray clouds.  I was expecting a game similar to last year's hilarious start to the season where the kids had no idea what they were doing and the coaches were on the field telling them what to do the entire time.  Not this year!  This year we watched a soccer game.  As in, the kids knew how to kick off, throw the ball in from out of bounds, how to do a corner or goal kick, etc.  What a world of difference.  The one thing that stayed the same from last year was the herd mentality where there was no real teamwork in passing the ball but just a big group of kids following the ball around the field.  They did try to differentiate between defense and offense by having two kids hang back a little which sort of worked.  Grace didn't understand the defense concept at all and kept trying to run after the ball.  This year she is a go-getter!

I am so proud of Gracie this year, she really stepped up to the plate and is a fully participating member of the team.  Last year she took on the role of looking cute and staying out of everyone else's way as they played the game.  This year she is running hard and getting into the action.  I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw her getting into the middle of the action time after time.  She never stopped running and never hung back.  She may be the smallest on the field but she is determined not to be the slowest!

I did get Grace to soccer pictures by 8am on Saturday morning, but since I didn't buy anything apart from a team photo I took one quick "nice" photo after her game.  Her "small" uniform swims on her and she had to wear last year's shorts because this year's won't stay up even when we cinch them as far as they go.  At least the socks aren't as ginormous as last year and fit much better!