Soccer Tryout

Disclaimer: This post is several months overdue, as are several  others.  Hopefully, over the next several days, maybe weeks, we can get  the Barrios presence on these here interwebs updated.

Marielle played soccer this last fall and is now looking forward to spring soccer which starts in a few weeks.  If you had asked me back in the fall if she was going to be excited about this spring, I'd tell you, "no."  The first few weeks went less than well.  She was very uncomfortable with trying a new sport, I think.  We kind of expected this since Field Day in her pre-school class went the same way.

After 15 minutes of coaxing, we finally got her out on the field, but participating was a different story.  At this point, I have to thank her assistant coach.  He was a big help.  He got her to join the rest of the team in doing warm-up exercises, and for the next three weeks he worked to get her out during the warm-ups and to participate in the games.  At first she would run the drills, but only if I ran them too.  So just picture me running alongside all of these little girls while all the parents of girls who liked soccer looked on with laughter.  By the second week, she did much better, and, for the second half of the season, she actually looked forward to the games.

Watching Ellie play was hilarious.  Early on, it became apparent that she hadn't yet developed that competitive spirit.  She spent many of her games out on the field picking up fallen leaves which she would then attempt to show her coach.  Or she would volunteer to get subbed out so that she could sit on the team blanket and sip her water from her new Camel Bak water bottle.  In between sips, she would ask us if she could have her end-of-game snack yet.  Then, by the time the game ended, Ellie typically wouldn't be interested in the snack because it was typically something healthy like an apple, carrots, or a granola bar.  But, I'm going to side with Marielle on this one.  I mean, what kind of a coach does that?  I sucked at intramural sports as a kid, but both us sucky kids and the athletic kids alike all looked forward to swiss cake rolls, twinkies, or oatmeal cream pies at the end of every game.  One week, Marielle walked up after the game with a bag of M&M's, or something like that.  Apparently, she had gotten them from the other team.  Yes, she begged the other team's coach to hook her up with a good snack.  I think her Oma put her up to it.

All in all, she ended up enjoying the season, and gained her biggest fan.  At the beginning of the season, Harper was sad that she was still too young to play, but by the end of it, she would cheer loudly for Marielle.