I recall only ever having the kind in the all-white box, I think it was lime, or some equally obtuse 'fruit' juice flavour. That, being afraid of being put in goal (oh the pressure!) and doing a strange marching routine in my bedroom that involved saluting while listening to the Whitecaps theme song on a 45, is my total soccer experience as a child. You must recall their catchy theme song.
*****
White is the colour,
Soccer is the game,
We're all together and winning is our aim,
So cheer us on through the sun and rain,
Because Whitecaps, Whitecaps is our name!
- Whitecaps theme song
And so it is with an odd happy-yet-anxious childhood perspective that I escorted Leif and Hannah to a week-long soccer camp over Spring Break.
Every day from 9-12, every day that it rained, some days a lot, other days only a bit. With a bag of snacks, another bigger bag of wet weather gear, and Ivy bundled up in every possible outdoor layer she owns, we ventured out to the fields. Hannah and Leif insisting on wearing the same outfit every single day (washed nightly by yours truly to remove the stink and damp of hours in the rain) of soccer shorts, leggings, double socks, shin-guards, long-sleeve shirt, and new Star Wars tees on top. Oh and the toques, of course. They divided them up by age, then had them play a bit and re-organised them into better-matched levels of skill.
Hannah found her niche in the 5-6's, and spent all her time running around, or reminding her coaches of the various rules they'd just taught her. I'd worried initially that this might not work out for Hannah. Though she loves soccer, 3 hours is a long time to keep that love going, and not just burn out. I stuck around for the first hour, watched her find her groove, and then went to run a few errands. I returned an hour later to hear her 'offering' up her rule-reminders to the head coach, and I knew she'd be alright for the rest of the week. Overall she has had a great time. Even though it gets tiring, she never gives up. She runs and runs whenever they tell her to, does the drills, plays the games, partners up. She asked me often why the two other girls in her group of 10 spent all their time trying to kiss the boys in their group. I told her those were silly, silly girls. There were rough kids, bored kids, the kissers, and Hannah just navigated around them, scoring or missing or forgetting to pass the ball.
Thursday was a hard day, because it ended with a game that sounds fun (Star Wars!) but in reality was for Hannah, a real spirit-breaker. Two teams, point of game to run to other end of field and steal a ball from the other teams pile. Do not get tagged by said other team or you must start again. I've never seen her run so fast, doing figure eights, kids falling in her wake trying to keep up with her. And yet, every time, she got tagged. And after about 8 tries, it hurt. There were tears, we tried to create a positive try, one coach helped her, encouraged her, played defense for her, but still, she got tagged. The day ended in tears of frustration, the heart break of losing ("Mom, our team won!". "Be quiet Leif!"). I tried to slide in the reality that sometimes we just lose, even when we've tried our hardest. Other times we win and feel great. Pointing out how hard she tried, and that that is so important; that she never gave up, she kept at it. And that it just downright sucks that there is no reward for all that effort. But maybe another time, there will be. I fought the desire to buy her a treat and 'make it all better'. It was all better in 10 minutes anyway. Overall she had a great time and came away with a new experience in her repertoire, and a new soccer tee and water bottle. Wahoo.
Hannah's latest pre-soccer dance tune My Door Bell by White Stripes
She's not yet seen this video for it, knowing there's all these kids in the video will just make it even cooler for her.
Her other favorite song right now is Soobax by K'Naan
Leif had an equally challenging week, in a different way. On the fist day he was bumped up to the 10-13 year olds group, to his absolute joy, and he stayed there all week. I'd look over at his field and see him go head-to-head with an opposing player, both hopping around to get control of that ball. He was challenged by bigger players, and sometimes overcame them and felt great pride, other times being defeated but taking it in stride. When he made a great save in goal the coach would say he was 'on fire', and he'd repeat this to me later. When he had the ball and other players would yell his name for a pass, I know he loved being part of that group. they taught him new ball moves that he has yet to master, which is great, because it gives him something he can work on on his own time, and reminds him of how much there still is to learn. Yet he can look back on all he has already learned and know he can do it, but it takes practice.
We're now moving into a break period between soccer seasons, and it will be a noticeable lull in his days. But his coach asked him back to the last 2 team practices, and he begins a new regimen of soccer 4 times a week in mid-April (reg class, first team sessions 2x a week, plus summer league). He's really excited about that.
Here's a soccer clip we love to watch.
Leif has found a new interest this week; dominoes. He began with a simple set-up, and then tried more interesting things. Here's one from the beginning of the week. he's since tried even more complicated things, and learned what works and what doesn't.
He asked me if ambulance drivers were doctors and we had a discussion about how they are not necessarily doctors, but that they have the medical knowledge to handle specifically emergency situations. To keep you alive until they can get you to a doctor. How do they do *that*? he asks. And I explained. This lead us to talking to Hannah about how to call the ambulance (or police)if she needed help. This jogged my brain to do a little safety session with them both, now that Hannah is older, about staying safe, getting safe, and getting help. We'll start this next week perhaps.
Leif and Hannah got some mail this week. My mom wrote to them to stay in touch when she cannot come to visit. They each got their own letter and got different, personal information. I suggested (lightly) that they write back. Leif was stuck at what he should write, how do you know what to write? I suggested writing his thoughts on what Nana had written (her dog is unwell) and then he could tell her a bit about his week. He opted for the latter, and with only one or two questions about punctuation (no spelling ones), this is what he turned out.
I think his attempts (and successes) at punctuation are great! I grabbed a kids punctuation book out of the library so we could look at it next week. I hope my mom and Al write back and we can continue this exercise.
Hannah's letter is precious. She never asked me what to write, nor how to spell anything, and just had the idea to parrot back what my mom had written to her. I love that she wrote 'are you' as 'R U'. Of course! To help you see her genius, here's the beginning translated for you. " Hi Nana and Al. I (heart) U both so much. How are you doing?" (HAW R U DOING). The rest is her own uncertainty at the idea of St. Patrick's day (I don't know what the green people are for? she writes) complete with 4-leaf cover art. I hope the recipients save these treasures!
On our paper route walk Hannah asked me about the word 'adjective', and could you use 'adjec' as a short form of it? No, sorry. I asked her if she knew what the word meant, which she did not, so I explained it to her. Then we brainstormed some adjectives. I said my tea is 'hot', she said 'or your tea is warm'. This is child-led learning, as opposed to rote grammatical worksheets. Yay.
Leif has been experiencing an uncomfortable bout of eczema and I suggested he go off wheat for a week. Before he did, he had one last big bowl of the beloved buttery noodles.
And a week later, his rash is 99% gone. It could be the wheat, it could be just a coincidence. We're adding wheat back in to see.
After all the Robin Hood reading and watching last month, it was only a matter of time before the castle playmobile stuff came out again. Now the basement is wall-to-wall Kings Feasts and then thieves try to sneak in and steal food for the poor. I can think of worse ways to spend your days. :)
As usual, I leave you with some Ivy moments. Th other day I bought her some new socks, and when we got home she wanted to put them on. I said no, she already had socks on and her new ones could get put away in her drawer for tomorrow. I noticed later on that she was in our room with the door shut, which is not an unusual occurrence. She likes to just hang out in the quiet sometimes. When she came out, the grin on her face made me immediately look at her feet. Oh yeah, she was proud. She'd put on her new socks if she damn well felt like it thank you very much!
Ivy loves to arrange her 'people in her 'stuff'. Her Wild things guys, or old rubber babies, or stuffed gecko, wrapped in blankets or stuffed in bags, put into her wooden carriage (used to be mine), or propped up in her high chairs. Here she is at her puzzle table where she's arranged her Max doll in a high chair with a piece from her puzzle, so they can work on it together. Golden!!!!!!!!
And at the end of the day, her stuff is all set up, waiting for her to wake up and get it all out again the next day.
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