Wesley's first soccer game

Wesley is such a fun and active kid. We signed him up for a sports class at the YMCA this fall for 3 and 4 year olds. They spend 3 weeks on soccer, 3 weeks on t-ball, then 3 weeks on basketball, with 2 practices and a game for each sport. We were excited for him to try some things out and to have the chance to be coached by someone other than mom and dad. He was excited because we were excited, and he loved having a new soccer ball. I think he knew something exciting was going on, but wasn’t quite sure what.

He did ok at the soccer practices. The first one he was on the tail end of a virus, hadn’t slept well, and was pretty grumpy. The next week he was all over it. He was LOVING the drills and kept taking turns when it wasn’t his turn, he was having so much fun with it.

Then came the game week. 

Here he is not really paying attention to the initial instructions. He's the one leaning on his ball on the far left.

He really likes the drill where you put your foot on your ball. Again, far left.

Wandering away from the team when they were supposed to be lining up to divide into 2 teams

 At this point they were instructed to give their own ball back to their parent and they would then play a soccer game using only one ball. Wesley refused to play since they weren't using his ball.

 The awesome and intuitive coach realized what was keeping Wesley from playing, and allowed Wes to swap out his own ball for the game ball. Here Wesley is in the middle of the shot chasing down HIS ball. (He's the one with black tennis shoes and no shin guards, in the center of the shot).

 Well he pretty much just freaked out and melted down that all the other kids were kicking HIS ball. Yep, that's one of the coaches, carrying my spazzing kid.

 Once he FINALLY laid hold on his precious ball, he immediately took it out of play. He grabbed it and marched right back to the sidelines.

 I tried and tried to get him to get back into the game.

 But mostly it just went like this.

 On the sidelines.

 Yeah I was still trying to get him to go out there...

 The coaches are so nice and persistent. They have way more patience than I would.

 Oh well. That lasted long... not.

 Reese was enjoying her time with me on the sideline. She wanted to grab the camera.

 When Eric joined us after work he tried to convince Wesley to play. He wasn't successful either.

 This is Reese's "Mommy-Hold-Me!" face.

 Afterward they had the whole team sit for a picture. Yet again, the coach is trying to get my kid to join the group.

 He ran off, the coach caught him and we tried again.

 He's sitting here because we bribed him with chocolate cake. "Wesley if you don't sit down for this picture you won't get any chocolate cake at home tonight!" And then he sat.

 Clearly the boy has a bright future in soccer. The next David Beckham.

All in all, it was a frustrating and hilarious and adorable scene. Eric is not at all a fan of soccer, so he wasn't too broken up over Wesley's disinterest. Last week we started T-ball and I have much higher hopes for that. We've never played soccer with him at home but we play baseball all the time and have since he was really little. He's actually never watched a soccer game, but he's watched plenty of baseball. I'll try to give the update on the T-ball game. Stay tuned in a couple of weeks.