Soccer Saturdays

The other day, out of the blue, Mickey says to me, "Daddy, where is my new gymnastics going to be and when am I going to start soccer?" Well, Daddy didn't have an answer. And that is one thing about living in the Berkshires, it isn't easy finding on the internet everything you need or want to do. Talking to parents is not one of my strong points. Either I have nothing to say to another parent at all or I dry up very soon after a conversation starts. Something I have to work on. I guess. There are a couple mothers that always stop to talk to me, bless their hearts. So I have been trying to take advantage of such forced upon conversations to ask important questions like, "Who is your pediatrician?" and "Where do kids play soccer or T-ball?" T-ball starts in the spring and notices will go out to all the kids, so said Mrs. Briggs, the Kindergarten classroom assistant who overheard my question. Thank you, Mrs. Briggs. Dr. Heck will now be our pediatrician, if we can ever get Dr. Max's office to transfer over all Mickey's files. And soccer is played on Saturdays at 9:00 a.m. on the soccer fields over at Undermountain Elementary in Sheffield, the school Mickey will go to when he is in 5th grade.














The school grounds around here are gorgeous, aren't they?

Undermountain has after school programs, so he may have to go their sooner if I can't find a job that works around his school hours now. But I'd really hate to switch him out of New Marlborough as I think the small class sizes there will be to his benefit. But I digress.

Leaving the house at 8:15 on a Saturday morning is not an easy feat, especially when you factor in breakfast. Alas, I did not get much breakfast crammed down him, but off we went anyway. And all the drama about what to wear. But off we went anyway. And all the asthmatic coughing. Should we go or shouldn't we? Just bring the pump. And off we went anyway.














Not many were there when we arrived, so finding Coach Josh was easy.


















After completing a brief sign-up form and forking over a mere $30 bucks, we were signed up for Soccer Saturdays through mid-November. Lord, I hope it doesn't snow till after then.

There is another coach, whose name I do not yet know, but he and Coach Josh are so great with these kids. Their instructions are so good and their delivery is even better. You'd almost think their lines had been written by some comedian, they were so funny.





And moments like this always provide a good laugh:














They begin with drills to warm up. Tap, tap, tap the ball with foot, which accomplishes what, I don't know. Running and kicking the ball, standing and kicking the ball, jogging around the field behind Coach Josh all serve to provide the parents with a good laugh. But the laughs really come once the scrimmages start. The kids are divided up by shirts and each team simply tries their best to get their ball into the correct goal. There are, of course, points scored for the other team because the little players forget which goal is theirs. As the scrimmages went on, the teams quickly dwindled. And there was one player who kept hogging the ball, and though he was tuckered out because he hadn't eaten enough breakfast, he kept going like the Energizer Bunny. No matter who managed to get the ball, this one little player always managed to get it back and score point after point. And to give him a challenge, Coach Josh jumped into the game to insert a little defense, or is offense? Coach Josh purposefully kept taking the ball away from ball hog to make him work a little harder since his teammates and rivals weren't giving him much to worry about. I'm talking about Mickey, and Papa and Daddy were so proud!













And he scores! (And he tugs.)