Cooper's Soccer Game

Cooper decided he wanted to play soccer.  Well, sorta.  At Kam's game last Saturday, he said he wanted to play after he saw all his friends.  So I asked Kam's coach (who is the league president) if he could play in the spring and she said he could play now.  So at Kam's practice on Friday, she brings all the extra uniforms and jerseys for him.  The problem is that the team he wanted to be on was full so he decided he didn't want to play.  We made the mistake of asking him one last time Friday night and he said he did want to play after all.

So here we go early Saturday morning to his game. One hour early mind you.... He decided he wanted to play on the green team because he knew a boy from school on that team.  The coach had every color jersey except the green one so she graciously runs home to get it right before the game starts.  He's running around like crazy with energy and enthusiasm.  By the time he gets it on his game has already started....but it's 4-5 year olds so it's no big deal.  The coach was nice and tried to put him right in to play.  

Here's the problem....

Cooper all of a sudden becomes shy and refuses to go in.   Are you kidding me?

I kept telling Mark to do something and I really think that he was just trying to stay calm.... he told me his blood pressure was about to explode after the hoops we jumped through to get him on a team.

I will say that his response was probably typical considering he's 5 and was just thrown into a game where he didn't really know the coach or other players.  His friend from school wasn't there (figures!) and the only other boy we knew was having a "moment" too and ended up not playing. 

 

The sweetest little boy came over and began kicking with him to get him out on the field.  Don't let these pictures fool you though.  He was probably out there for about one minute total.

The snack after the game was probably the highlight for him!  I really thought for a minute that Mark was not going to let him have it...

I'm hoping that after he practices with them on Thursday that he will get more into it... he has to!