Every once in awhile, you see something, but it's unconfirmed. You know that in the little fuzzy wrapping something beautiful will emerge, but you aren't allowed to open it. Anticipation builds...
I had been looking forward to watching Judah play soccer in his town league for a long time. We are intentional about keeping our kids to minimal of structured activities ( we think it's lame how insanely structured tiger-parenting can be; we don't have enough money, we have too many kids to pay for them all, etc.) But.. Elijah has karate, mainly because he needs it and it needs him, and Judah's so damn good at ball sports ( at least at our house) that I really wanted to see him play. (Plus, he really wanted to play, and let's be honest, it's more fun playing soccer on grass than in our "backyard" parking lot. Less road rash and the like.)
So on Saturday, April 9th, he had his first game. Except he didn't -- because it snowed that week and apparently a co-ed 5-yr-old league isn't that serious about its games. Judah and I moped.
... So on Saturday, April 16th, he had his first game. (Thank goodness, this is true). 'Game' may be a misnomer. I'm such an introverted novice to the world of middle/upper-middle class parenting. Rachel is a natural, being all social and working the crowd ( she calls it "being friendly," something I've never tried); I am there solely to watch/play the game. Which is why it's incredibly disappointing when after five minutes, we are herded over to the third field in a long series and get to practice for a while before anything else happens. Frankly, I came to a realization that day. I am "that parent." The intensity doesn't diminish just because it's practice. Rachel may have banned me from ever coming again three or four times in the first ten minutes alone. I wasn't sure Judah was going to make it either as they stood in a circle, Kum-by-Ya style, and passed the ball to each other while calling out their new friends' names. It was actually a little bit of an inverse ratio of skill-to-memory in effect. There were kids who could pass the ball, and there were kids who could remember the names of their new friends, but not many (if any) who could do both. God bless the coaches. I hope they get paid. Judah, for his part, would boom passes at his counterparts, then shrug his shoulders when asked who he had just passed to. (True to form **Spoiler alert ** he had a LOT of fun, but when pressed at home after the end of the game, he hadn't the faintest clue as to the names of any of his peers.) At least he remembered his coach's name.
After this were dribbling drills, where we got to see a lot of little people going left while the ball went right, and tripping over the ball and taking headers. this was actually worth the price of admission -- free! -- and then some. As Rachel said to me while engrossedly watching, "Four and five is such a great age. They have NO idea what their bodies are doing."
Mercifully the whistle eventually blew, and they were again shepherded for a water break and split up into squads for the game. As soon as the game started, Judah ran straight back away from the ball. What is he doing???? I thought. It soon became clear. He has been so trained from our own backyard soccer that you never let anyone score on you that he sprinted straight to his goal, stood menacingly in it like a goalie (there aren't any in kindergarten soccer), and waited for the onslaught to come. As soon as the ball got near him, he booted it away, but still didn't make any move forward. The two forwards for the other team came in again, and again he sprinted straight at them to take the ball away -- only this time, it was like watching the butterfly emerge. He stopped thinking and let instinct take over, taking the ball away cleanly and bursting left, actually dribbling faster than the other team could run, with the exception of one astute defended who took a beautiful angle to cut him off, tripped on his own feet, and ended up on a blooper highlight reel somewhere. Judah went racing down the field, all alone ... and paused ten feet away from the goal to drill it five feet to the left. Oh well,I guess we'll try again next week, I thought to myself. I looked out -- he had his hands on his hips, grinning as he sprinted back to his goal.
The crazy part about the game was that it just kept happening. The other team would come down like waves on the seashore, leaving no one back, and letting Judah and one other little flying redhead take away the ball and dribble down for chance...
after chance...
after chance. He ended up scoring 6 times in a 7-2 victory. And the look of delight was something to behold. It reminded me, just for a moment, of Eric Liddell's famous quote, later lionized in Chariots of Fire, about why he ran. "I believe that God made me for a purpose, but he made me fast. When I run, I feel his pleasure."
Whether it's soccer or something else down the road for Judah, I was glad to be there when he first got to turn the jets on and score a goal. Can't wait for next week --if I'm not permanently banned :)
I was a wonderful game for Judah. I always knew He would be good at sports. GGD
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