Our little soccer player

Playing soccer has been something that Cooper has talked about forever. Joshua has been coaching and older team for 2 years (4 seasons) and Cooper has always gone to practice/games with him. The kid has been "playing" soccer since he could walk. The older kids that Joshua coaches have always been really good with Cooper at practice. They let him play with them during breaks, let him shag balls, and include him when they can.

This year Cooper is old enough to play, however, there was a catch. Cooper had to be potty trained or daddy wouldn't let him play. Oh how that finally worked. Cooper was finally completely potty trained the week of sign-up.

The age division that Cooper plays in (and Joshua coaches) is more instructional that anything. They get together on Monday nights when all the other kids play and they "practice" for about 20 min. Joshua was a bit concerned that he had gotten in over his head with these little kids, but from what I saw he did a good job. He had the kids do a few drills together and then let them play for about 5 min. Almost all the kids seemed to keep their interest into what was going on.

Surprisingly, Cooper was not as into playing as we thought he would be. He has talked about playing and has asked to play for so long that I didn't think we would be able to get him off the field. Not the case. He actually quit in the middle of practice and said he was done. Grandma Sheri (mom and dad came to watch) had to entice him back onto the field. Eventually he went, but still threw a fit when the ball got taken away from him......lovely, yes that is my son crying on the field. Mom seemed to think that maybe it was b/c all the other kids had a parent working with them and he didn't, who knows. I am not working tomorrow, so I will try to make it to practice and help him out.

Although he was sitting out, this is one of my favorite pictures.