Domestically Challenged

Why 3 year olds should NOT play soccer

Even though I have never played soccer, I volunteered to coach my daughter's team this season. If you have been reading here, you will see that this was not necessarily a good idea. This was reaffirmed when we had our first game this past Saturday.

For the record, I helped coach my son's team of 6 year olds and did just fine. They seem to be able to follow simple directions about the game, such as little things like the fact that in order to play soccer you have to actually be standing on the field. My husband warned me about coaching soccer. "Don't you remember how bad it was for me?" Apparently coaching is a lot like pregnancy and childbirth - you remember the happy points and forget the pain, so you can presumably do it all again if you are crazy enough.

Here's how painful the game was for me. My daughter, my very own offspring, was on the field for about 45 seconds. My husband had to go and get snack for the team (we had a member of the team gone), so he wasn't around to help me. My dear, dear daughter then TOOK OFF during the game and played on the playground for the entire first half of the game. Nevermind that a crazy pedimo could have taken her. Nevermind she was completely unsupervised. Nevermind I had to try and get the kids on the field to listen while trying to locate my daughter 50 yards away.

It just sucked.

THEN, to top it off, I couldn't get enough kids on the field at one time. You know how many I needed? 3! I couldn't even get 3 kids on the field at the same time. How sad is that?

I actually started having flashbacks during the game about the movie Kicking and Screaming. Now I know why Will Ferrell's character needed all that coffee. We have one kid on the team who can score at will. It was just like "Kick it to the Italians!" - he is the ONLY reason we scored any goals at all. I would have done better coaching with a martini in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. At least that way I could have dulled the pain and bribed the kids towards the goal at the same time.

I remember one point in the game I just wanted to sit down in the middle of the field and weep. Or drink. I mean, hell, I couldn't even get enough kids on the field. Not only that, I couldn't even get my OWN offspring to be near the damn game.

This season will definitely be a lesson in humility. Or alcohol tolerance, at the very least.

What have I gotten myself into...

Today, I am embarking on an adventure. I feel somewhat prepared, but I still have the nervous feeling down in the pit of my wobbly belly. My stress inducer of choice?

Coaching soccer. And not just any soccer. 3 year old soccer. Yup. Certify me as crazy, because beginning today, I am the proud coach of 9 3 year olds. I have plenty of coaching experience - I've coached cheer, volleyball and basketball for a total of 11 years coaching experience.

But this is SO different. For one, my daughter is on the team. That's right, the Menace will now have to follow my directions with the added pressure of other parents watching. How scary is that? Two, I've never played soccer. Ever. Unless you count high school PE class, which would be many, many years ago and I don't care to count them at the moment. The good news is that 3 year olds don't really play soccer anyways. They run around and look cute, so I should be ok.

I am SO excited to be coaching again, but the thought of my daughter being on the team terrifies me. I hope she listens, and if she doesn't, I hope my hubby helps. I will post an update after practice...wish me luck!

UPDATE:

Well, I said I would update after practice and it's now Saturday morning. It took me almost 3 full days to get over the pain.

I wanted to update you on Wednesday, but I was lying in the fetal position bawling like a big, fat baby. Practice was...um, bad. Not just bad, it sucked. It didn't just suck - I would have been better trying to get snakes to use forks or trying to get politicians to be pure and honest. Yes, it was THAT BAD.

What made me the most mad was that I didn't like feeling like I couldn't handle it. That really pissed me off. Not to mention the fact that my daughter spent most of the practice throwing little bitchy temper tantrums and screaming like a banshee. So. Not. Fun.

Now, I would have just thought that maybe I had lost my touch and I shouldn't have coached, but I helped my husband with his practice (and even ran the first half of practice) and I did good. I had fun. The kids could stand in a line.

For my practice most of the kids didn't have a ball. I had extras, not that it mattered. I couldn't get them to do ANYTHING related to ordered chaos. Hubby told me that I was expecting too much. Is it expecting too much to have kids standing in the general vicinity of the practice field, as opposed to in the rocks? Apparently so. Sigh.

Now that I have had a few days to regroup, I need to work on a plan. A plan to get at least half the team to kick a ball in the general direction of the goal. A plan to prevent them from wrestling on the field or ...Ok, maybe I AM expecting too much. I just hope we aren't embarrassed when we get out there. I want the parents to be happy with their kids and I want the kids to have fun. That's it. And maybe have the kids run in the same direction as the ball.