Soccer Stars!!

Calling Moo a Dancing Star in a previous post might have been a little premature. Today, she said "NO [wiggle wiggle]! Ball!" That meant she didn't want to go to dance. She wanted to go to soccer!! I promise I had nothing to do with that decision. *wink*wink* Since the 2.5 year old runs the house, that's what we did! It was SO MUCH FUN! I really want to get her enrolled in a class so that's next on my computer-time agenda this afternoon. Em can do it too but Megan actually followed instructions (for the most part) and tried to do the things the "coach" asked of them. It was almost like a completely different Moo!! Maybe she just speaks the language of sports! Em ... well little Emmers thought it was just a run around free-for-all, but she had fun doing that!! This was just a one time trial class that our playgroup set up and it was fantastic.

Moo chasing down her soccer ball!

They look like naturals waiting for practice to begin, don't they?

They played several different little games to focus on instruction and coordination. Coach called this one "clean monkey/messy monkey". He set up a bunch of cones and they had to run around and knock them all over with their feet and run back to the white line when he said time was up. Then they had to run over and pick them up with their feet. Using the toe on the wide base of the cone to step on it until it popped up. Megan was picking them up putting her toe under the skinny top part to stand them up. Such an over-achiever ... or she didn't pay attention. Whatever!! It was fun to watch and a great way to work on balance. You can tell that Em just picked them up and ran around, as did most of the other kids her age.

Towards the end he set up an obstacle course. We had to walk on "rocks" then sidestep across a big rope with our toes up on the rope. After that was a ladder that they were supposed to walk on the grassy part and not on the yellow rungs. Megan stomped on the rungs the first time through but had it figured out the second time. Here she is marching through the ladder. That's little Andrew behind her. He's a month older than Emmy. If you look closely at the left side of the pic you can see a little foot coming back toward Megan. That's Em. Marching to the beat of her own drum. ;p

After the ladder they hopped over some colored dots (which were used as place markers throughout the class). It was for the parents to teach colors really because we were all saying the colors as we jumped from dot to dot. Then came Em's favorite part ... the TUNNEL! It was almost too small for Moo and I wasn't sure if I was going to convince Em to come out.

Next was jumping over pool noodles ... and Moo LOVES to jump so she especially liked this part and came back to do it again. At the end, they kicked the ball into the goal!!

Clean up! Clean up! Everybody everywhere! Clean up! Clean up! Everybody do your share. (thanks to Barney - yes the gay purple dinosaur - for that little ditty). The kids picked up all the stuff and by this time, Megan actually trusted the coach enough. She picked up a noodle and walked over to the guy and handed it to him. That may not seem like much to some of you but for my little shy one, it was a HUGE step. The best part was that it happened all in one 45 minute session!! So Proud!

It only took about 10 minutes of Dora in the car for Em before Zzzzzz!

So Moo and I enjoyed a snack at Sonic while watching more Dora.

It really was a blast and quite a workout for me, especially since I was chasing Em all around. After the night we had I was surprised everyone survived soccer. Moo was up at 2:45 am screaming her head off. She must have had a bad dream or something. So, thinking she did so well sleeping with us while we were on vacation (actually sleeping and not crowding) I figured the best course of action would be to bring her down to our bed. W R O N G. Around 4:30 am, and no sleep, I finally dragged her and my pillow up to her room so we could sleep on the floor in there. I don't know when the last time any of you slept on the floor but, let's face it, floors and 30+ years old really don't mix. Trust me on that. I woke up at 6:00 and went downstairs only to be screamed back up by Em about 2 minutes later. About 2 minutes after I brought her down, Megan was up screaming again. Early start after a short night's sleep makes for a very tired mommy. Then a 45 minute work out when you're used to nothing more than grocery shopping in the morning. UGH! Thankfully the girls are napping so I'm able to bore you with my stories. You heard it here first ... Megan is destined for soccer stardom. Eat your heart out Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm!! ;)