Soccer Class

We signed Cliona up for soccer class for the summer. The class provides a soccer outfit (pink of course) complete with shin guards !! That was a little alarming - I mean, is my 3yr old really going to need shin guards ?? Well, no as it turns out. Not at all. There are plenty of mini-soccer balls for all the girls. Yes, that's the other funny part. Her class is all girls and the coach wears the same outfit so it's all very cute! Week 1 was awesome. During 'warm-up' coach Lindsay gets the girls to pretend they are airplanes and then asks where they want to go. Up pipes Cliona, not needing to be asked twice 'Texas' - to visit her Grandma and Grandpa of course!! Then the girls work on various soccer skills - dribbling, trapping the ball under their foot, kicking and of course scoring a goal. It was week 2 when they did the scoring drill. The girls had to dribble to the center line, around a cone and then back to score a goal. After Clio scored she lifted both arms in the air and shouted 'Yay'. It was classic - I wish I had got it on camera. Then week 3 Clio decided she didn't want to go to soccer class. When I asked her why, she said it was because she wasn't good at it. Can you believe it? I was not expecting that at all. Stephen suggested we have a soccer play date and Cliona loved that idea. I had thought maybe over the weekend but for some reason Clio thought the class was a play date. I suppose you could call a soccer class a soccer play date. Anyway by merely changing the name, she was delighted to go!

So in general it's going really well. The warm up is definitely her favourite part. Sometimes she finds the dribbling drills frustrating and will either pick up the ball or call on me to come and help. I'm hoping that as her confidence and skills grow she will need me less and less on the pitch but I know that as soon as that happens I will miss being needed.