Molly's First Soccer Game

Molly started in an AYSO soccer league, and this is her first time being involved in a sports team (or really any extracurricular activity). It was rough. Since they're so young they just have one practice, then the rest of the season practices are just 30 minutes before the game starts. Molly has been so excited to start, and was always talking about how many goals she was going to score. I always tried to bring her back to reality a little bit because she's so competitive that I knew she would get upset if she didn't score lots of goals per game. But I didn't anticipate her being so intimidated by the crowd of girls on the field. She started the game, and for the first couple of minutes she held it together, but I could tell she was really nervous. She was biting her nails and twirling her hair like crazy. And when she went to run after the ball she did a strange little prance, like she wanted to run after the ball but was really too scared to. Chris was yelling "Go Molly!" and "Kick the ball!" and once she made eye contact with him it was over. She broke down and came crying to the sidelines. She stayed balled up in my lap until it was time for the halftime snack. After the orange smiles she perked up and thought she was ready to go back in. She got onto the field but before the first kick she came running off the field again crying. But this time she was crying that she wanted to go home. We sat for a few more minutes, then the coach came over and said Chris could come out on the field with her if that helped. After a little convincing she decided to do it. It was looking good until the ball came her direction, then she got scared and came running off again. She still wanted to leave, but I reminded her of the post-game treat and drink and that was enough enticement to stick it out. I hope things get better or this could be a very long season!


Molly's favorite color is purple, so you can imagine the excitement when they got purple jerseys! Plus she is number 4, which is also exciting because that's how old she is. These pictures are during the pre-game practice.





Go Purple Rainbows!


Claire wanted to play so bad she could hardly stand it. She actually made it on to the field a couple of times when I was too slow to catch her.



This is a little video of Molly trying to play again with Chris holding her hand.