Super Soccer Star: Part I

Dealing with a toddler who is an only child can sometimes be lots of fun. And I use that term very loosely. Those of you with more than one child who are more than a couple years apart can probably relate to that.

While there are a great deal of studies on the statistically ideal amount of time to wait between children, one thing is certain. After two and a half years of being the only child, Kyle seems to have gotten quite used to that fact. As such, Mommy and I thought it would be a good idea to get him into things that would require a bit more social development. In this case...sports!

Not far from our home, we got Kyle signed up for eight weeks of Soccer Tots! I'll admit, I was a little concerned at how this would work out. Sometimes, he does really well with new things and other times he's a nightmare. It was a 50/50 shot, but there we were on Saturday morning having Kyle tote his new green and white soccer ball to his first soccer lesson.

First, we all sat in a circle with our soccer balls and did some stretching exercises (to the tune of "Head, shoulders, knees and toes"...Hey, it was a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds. What did you expect? "Drop and gimme 20?")

They obviously were well prepared for this age group as the first thing after stretching was to have them run around and kick the soccer balls. I think they knew that was what all the kiddos wanted to do anyway, so why not make it part of the program.

Time to line up and await further instructions!

OK. Now, let's practice tapping our foot on top of the ball to learn the "soccer stop."

Next, a game called "Messy Monkey, Clean Monkey." First, we set out colored cones all over the room. Once our little OCD child got over the fact that he wasn't supposed to be picking the cones up, he got with the program and put the cones down all over the floor. (OK, well, actually he kind of lined them all up somewhat neatly, rather than the haphazard method other "normal" toddlers were using.)

Notice how nice and lined up the cones are by our little one?

Now for the really hard part. Kicking the cones over! It was rough at first, but he caught on pretty quickly and was a contributing factor to the "Messy Monkey" aspect of the game.

There are more great pictures to come. And I think Mommy even got some video so those will be posted as well. For now, I will leave you to contemplate the current images and await additional pictures with breathless anticipation.

Also, I should note that, at the risk of utterly destroying Pepere's (that's my dad) hopes, our other option had been toddler baseball. Sorry, Pop! I'll try leaning on the lame excuse that I'm waiting for you to come out here and teach him that yourself. Let me know if that doesn't work so I can start working on another excuse.

That's all for today. So, while my dad has to run over to the E.R. to get some meds (and maybe some oxygen), the rest of you have a great night and there will be more pictures soon!