Ez's First Day of Soccer

I'm not sure who was more excited for Ez's first day of soccer, him or me. This kid has so much energy. Every single day he asks me "want to keep running??" which means he wants us to run laps around the couch. And around and around and around he goes. His endurance is way better than mine. If he sees a sport on TV he'll immediately try to mimic it, whether that's shooting hoops in the kitchen or pretending to be tackled after watching football. So I knew the physical part of a sport would be fun for him. The other reason I signed him up was for the social aspect. Ez is painfully shy around other kids and I'm hoping that by seeing the same kids over and over again he'll warm up to playing with them. 

Sure enough he loved all the running around, especially since Daddy was on the field with him (and yes, Joe kicked him in the face in one of those pictures below - apparently Ez is too tall to run under Dad's leg anymore and Mom has excellent photographic timing). It was all fun and games until he had to interact with other kids, then he'd practically run off the field. I'm not really sure what to do about that other than just keep going and hope the shyness wears off.

The class is for 2.5 - 3.5 year olds and the first part was lots of running back and forth and learning to listen to directions, like Red Light, Green Light. Then they worked on more technical stuff like setting a cone upright using their foot and kicking a ball between the cones. Around this point Ez had a major sugar crash and sat down on the floor saying he couldn't do it anymore (I get melodramatic when I'm hungry too). I gave him a larabar and he was back up and running around. 

Afterward he was so proud of himself and kept telling us he'd played soccer. On the way home he talked rapidly to himself in the backseat and all I could understand was the word soccer every now and then.

The first half of the season a parent is supposed to be on the field with them  and by the second half the kids are supposed to be independent enough to listen to the coach while the parents sit on the sidelines. It's kinda hard picturing Ez growing up that much in a few short weeks, but he's constantly surprising me with his intelligence and maturity so it'll be interesting to see how he grows from this process. And in case you were wondering what Declan was up to while all this was going on, he was staring entranced at his brother the entire time, silently rooting him on, I'm sure. We are so proud of our #5!