First Game

Esme's been going through a lot of growing pains lately.  I will probably write about it at some point, but the quick and dirty of it is that she's suddenly very nervous and scared of doing things.  On Monday night's soccer practice the coaches told the kids that Wednesday would be their first game.  That immediately made Esme nervous.  She talked about it the next two days.  "What if the other team scores 100 goals and The Butterflies don't score any???", "Mom, I don't know how to play a soccer game!  What if I'm horrible?".  Stuff like that.

I tried my best to reassure her that the other kids were new to soccer and everyone was there to learn how to play a game, but she was still very nervous.  It probably doesn't help that the World Cup is going on and there's a lot of soccer talk in our house. :-/

When she first got there, they warmed up a bit.  She was so nervous she couldn't even listen to the coach and she kept calling me over because she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do.  Finally, she got settled in a bit and relaxed.

The game was against The Grasshoppers and it was pretty fun to watch.  At first there were 5 Butterflies to 6 Grasshoppers.  But then one of the Butterflies started crying (it wasn't Esme!) and two of them went to get drinks from their parents.  I'm not sure where the other one was, but at one point it was Esme against 6 Grasshoppers.  And she held her own.

Esme even scored two goals!  She was so excited!  

It's kind of funny to watch the kids play.  They all move like a swarm of bees around the ball.  But at one point the girls figured out that they could block the net.  So they would run down and form a human wall in front of the net.  Esme caught on to that really quick!  We'll have to talk about proper defense at some point! :)

At the end of the game, they all shook hands and then they did the Butterfly cheer.

Go Butterflies!!!

Esme had so much fun that when she got home all she wanted to do was play soccer with her dad.  So they played in the front yard for awhile until it was finally bed time.

I'm hopeful that this has quelled her nerves a bit and she can enjoy the rest of the soccer season nerve free!