The Purple Guys

Soccer. (aka Football to the rest of the world.) It's no secret that Matthew's mom is a huge fan. However, turning my child into a prodigy wasn't exactly what I was after when Matty played in his first soccer league this year. It would have been nice if he could have kicked the ball a few more times though!

Seriously, have you ever watched 3 and 4 year olds play soccer? It is hysterically funny. First, the game is only 30 minutes long, and consists of two 15 minute halves and a 10 minute break in the middle. The basic idea of 3 year old soccer is to keep the kids on the field, preferably somewhere in the vacinity of the ball, but even that isn't necessary. Basically, the coaches herd the children from one end to the other, hoping that someone will break out of the pack and actually kick the ball into the net, again preferably their own net, but not necessarily. Watching each game was like watching the Marx brotthers. Invariably, someone was crying on the sideline because they didn't want to play, someone was crying because they got kicked ( or a whole pile of kids fell on top of them), or they were just ready for a juice box and a time out whenever they wanted and would randomly leave the field. The best was when the ball would go out of bounds and all the kids would chase it, until they got to this patch of dirt on the side of the field- then they would sit down and play in the dirt instead, and I swear I saw someone eat the dirt once as well. Once Matthew got over the apparent trauma of having to wear a purple uniform (blue always being the preferable color), he loved being "purple guy number 7!" He was always telling the coach, " I'm a purple guy!" And, he was a great "purple guy."