These Girls

Last fall Lucy joined the third soccer team of her short soccer career, one that is mostly full of girls from her elementary school. She has actually played for a few years, once on a random team of girls we didn’t know when she was in the pee-wee league, and two seasons on a team with her preschool friends, but this is the first time we’ve really felt at home. On our first team, Lu was by far the smallest and all the other girls were looking to be the next Mia Hamm. The second team was full of awesome girls, but it was far from our home, so getting to practices and games was a pain, especially as I was working full time.

But this team seems to be the perfect fit! Lucy is having a ton of fun hanging out with her friends from school at practices and games, and the team is very focused on skills and teamwork instead of just winning games. Which was a good thing this season, because for whatever reason, the league decided to make our tiny team of first graders play up a grade. We had several girls who had never played soccer before, playing against 8 and 9 year old girls who had been playing for years. These girls had such a hard season, and yet they kept smiling until the end. I am so proud of each and every one of them for working so hard, even when certainly wasn’t very fun. Our coaches were endlessly patient, and I feel pretty lucky they focused on the growth of our girls this year instead of on winning or losing. I’m actually sort of proud of our group of parents too. It’s the worst watching your kids get beaten in every game, especially when it’s so obviously unfair, but we tried to stay positive too. I think the great attitudes of our girls reflected what awesome parents they have.

Hopefully next year our league will be a bit more evenly matched, but until then, I’m going to focus on how proud I am of this team!