New Logos

I finally got around to finishing the boys' soccer team logos. Here's LilKat1's logo. His team is the Bakugan Battle Blazer Penguins:

LilKat1 liked this logo. First of all, it has one of his favorite Bakugan's on it. And second the penguin is in his Super Mario Smash Bros. game, so he works for both 'Battle' and 'Penguin'.

Here's the logo for LilKat2's team:

Ok, this one was kind of funny. The boys didn't know what to make of it. First of all, LilKat1 told me that the firecracker wasn't a firecracker. It was a bomb. And they couldn't figure out where the coyote was.

Our conversation went something like this:

Them: Dad, who's that guy in the picture?

Me: Who's the guy?!?!?!?! That's the Coyote!

Them: That's not a coyote.

Me: Of course it is! That's the Coyote! Wile E. Coyote!

(puzzled stares)

LilKat1: He looks like a rabbit.

So of course I had to fire up YouTube and find a RoadRunner cartoon for them to watch. So now they know who the Coyote is. Kids these days...

Overcoming Evil with Good

The boys are doing Spring Soccer right now. It's basically a soccer clinic that the boys go to every Monday. They do games and drills and learn new soccer skills.

At the last practice, LilKat1 had an interesting incident. During the middle of a drill, another boy came up to him and took his ball. Obviously this didn't make LilKat1 very happy. I was wondering what he would do. First, he asked the boy for his ball back. The boy said no. I was wondering if he would try to forcefully take the ball back from the other kid (it's what I would've done when I was little). But instead, he started looking around the field. It took him a few seconds, but he spotted whatever it was he was looking for and quickly made a beeline for it. He had found 2 soccer balls sitting together. He ran over, picked them up, and raced back to the boy that took his ball. He told the boy that he would give him both balls in exchange for his own ball. The other boy, being greedy, enthusiastically took the deal. LilKat1 was happy that he had his ball, and the other boy was happy that he had 2 balls instead of one.

Immediately, a Bible verse popped into my head:

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:20-21

The funny part was that the other boy didn't even get to keep his extra balls (he had actually ended up with 3 because he grabbed another one as well). The coach took all of the extra balls from the kids who had more than one and gave them to kids that didn't have any.

Ok, so maybe it's not like burning coals on his head. And maybe what LilKat1 did was more outsmarting the kid, rather than an act of kindness. but I still thought it was funny.

I was also proud of my son for making a good choice. Like I said, if that was me as a boy, I definitely would've grabbed the ball away from the kid and probably got into an argument or fight. I told LilKat1 that I was proud of him for not making a bad choice like I would've made. That little boy continues to amaze me with the stuff his wonderful brain comes up with.

I'm Done!

Oh boy, what a week...

Here's all the stuff I did:

1) Ran 3 Soccer practices

2) Coached 2 Soccer games

3) Attended 2 End of Season Soccer parties

4) Created 2 Soccer Team movies (along with copies for all of the parents)

5) Created 1 flower arrangement for my friend K's family (huge assist from Mrs. BigKat here)

6) Attended 1 pumpkin carving event at LilKat1's school

7) Created 1 Sunday School PowerPoint lesson with associated take home pages

All while sick!

I just printed the last page of my Sunday School stuff.

I'm done! Woo hoo!

Stinging Fire Pirate-saurs!

LilKat2 has his first soccer game tomorrow. Our team is the Stinging Fire Pirate-saurs. We got our team name because one kid wanted to be the Bees, one kid wanted to be the Fire Dragons, one kid wanted to be the Pirates and one kid (LilKat2) wanted to be the T-Rex's. So what do you get when you combine a Bee, a Fire Dragon, a Pirate, and a T-Rex? Well, you get a Stinging Fire Pirate-saur! And what exactly does a Stinging Fire Pirate-saur look like?

It looks something like this...

Soccer Games

I tried out 2 new games at soccer practice yesterday, and they worked pretty well. One was for the Kindergarten team and the other was for the 1st grade team.

1) Hospital Tag: I played this with the Kindergarten team. It's basically a game where one or more players are It and chase the remaining players around, trying to tag them. But when you get tagged, you're not out yet. The first time you get tagged, you have to run around with one hand on the spot where you were tagged. The second time you get tagged, you have to put your other hand on the spot where you were just tagged. It's pretty funny to see kids who have been tagged twice running around with their arms all tied up like a pretzel. The third time you get tagged, you have to go to the Hospital (since you have no more hands). You go over to a designated spot and perform an action (in our case, it was spin around 5 times) and then get back in the game.
We played our first game with no soccer balls, so that the kids could get used to the rules. For the second game, the players had to run around with their soccer balls. And if their ball went out of bounds, either by them kicking it out or someone else kicking it out, it was the same as being tagged on the foot. Now you have not seen funny until you've seen a group of Kindergarteners 'running' around trying to kick a soccer ball while holding their foot. There was a lot of laughing involved by both kids and adults (well, there was the one dad who saw his son holding his foot and ran to check on him because he thought he'd been injured...). Anyhow, it was a very good game to start off a Kindergarten soccer practice.

2) Zombies! : I played this with LilKat1's 1st grade team. We're trying to work on our passing this year and getting open. So I came up with the Zombies! game. In this game, the kids get into pairs (although groups of 3 work well too). Each group has one soccer ball. The coaches are the Zombies! who try to eat the soccer balls. Now Zombies! can only walk, not run. So normally it would be easy to get away from them. But in the Zombies! game, the person with the ball can not run or dribble. The only thing they can do is pass. This forces the other players on the team to get open in a spot with a clear passing lane. It worked pretty well. The kids were starting to get the hang of finding good spots to run to when they didn't have the ball. I think this is the only game we've done so far that has really achieved this goal. Plus, I think they had fun with the Zombies!

The Week in Review

A lot happened this week, so I thought I'd give you a quick review...

1) Camping! Me and LilKat1 went on our first camping trip on Saturday. We went to a place not too far from our house. We took LilKat2 with us, and Mrs. BigKat and PrincessKat caught up with us after PrincessKat's nap. It was quite fun. We set up our campsite, did some hiking, fishing, and marshmallow toasting. At around 7pm, Mrs. BigKat took LilKat2 (who did NOT want to go. He was very sad...) and PrincessKat home. That left me and LilKat1 at the camp. We went out and did some more fishing. It started to get dark, so we went back to the campsite and got ready for bed. Unfortunately, the people next to us were really loud for a long time. The camp ranger guy even had to come out and scold them. But it didn't help. So LilKat1 had a lot of trouble falling asleep. He eventually did at around 11:30 or so, but was awakened 2 and a half hours later by BOOMING THUNDER! His first time camping and we get caught in a Big Loud Thunderstorm. He didn't like it one bit. He asked me if we could go home. At first, I was thinking that we should just stick it out and stay until morning. The tent was keeping us dry, and we wouldn't be able to pack up until it stopped raining anyways. But I knew that he would not be able to fall asleep all night and would be pretty much miserable, so I agreed to take him home. Besides, my air mattress was leaking and I was basically just sleeping on the ground. Getting a few hours of sleep in my bed sounded much nicer than where I was at the time. So at around 3am, we quickly packed everything up and headed home. And that was LilKat1's first camping experience! Mrs. BigKat asked him if he'd like to do it again sometime, and he gave her an emphatic NO!

2) Mormons! When we got home from camping, I left all of our stuff in the truck. So the next day (Sunday), I had to unload everything. Right as I was starting, 3 Mormon guys rang our doorbell. Now anyone who knows me knows that I love talking to the Mormons. It basically gives me an opportunity to share the Gospel with a group of people and they have to stand there and listen to it and not go away! And sometimes, they even come back for more! I always see it as a great opportunity and have fun with it. These boys that came were very nice. One of them had actually come by a few weeks back, and it was clear that, this time, they had a game plan. But I wouldn't let all the talk of latter day prophets deter me from sharing my faith with these fellas. We talked for about an hour and a half. Mormon theology has a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense to me, so I was able to bring these things up to give them something to think about. It was also a nice exercise for me because it gave me an opportunity to try to articulate my beliefs in a way that people with different beliefs can understand. Plus, I was able to unload all my camping stuff while we talked, so I didn't feel like I was not getting my jobs done.

3) Dinosaur VBS and the crazy pastor! LilKat1 was invited to go to a VBS program at a local church. It was a dinosaur themed program, and LilKat1 LOVES dinosaurs. He only heard about it yesterday, so today was his first day. When he came back, he was all smiles. He had a fantastic time. He handed me all of the stuff that he got, and I started looking through it. Then I noticed something strange...on his handout, there was a lot of stuff about dinosaurs, but also a lot of stuff about Noah's Ark. I didn't get the connection. Then I saw the big picture on the 3rd page and it all made sense. The picture talked about how scientists have many ideas about how the dinosaurs became extinct, but they're pretty much wrong. You see, the real reason why the dinosaurs are extinct is...THE FLOOD! As in the Noah's Ark Flood.

Needless to say, I was a bit surprised. I had never heard of anyone believing this. I quickly called LilKat1 over and asked him if they talked about how the dinosaurs became extinct. He said 'Oh yeah...The flood!' I had to have a talk with him right away and let him know that I didn't think that this was right. He was pretty disturbed by the fact that I disagreed with the VBS people, so we had to have a big talk about it to settle him down.

I wanted to make sure that we wouldn't be in for any more surprises tomorrow, so I called the church. I was able to talk to the pastor, and I expressed my concerns. Now, this guy was amazing. He fully believes that not only were dinosaurs made extinct by the flood, but there were a bunch of them on Noah's ark. Now, I personally don't believe this (like I said, this was the first time I'd even heard of it), but I'm actually ok with someone else thinking that it's true. After all, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a whole lot about the ins-and-outs of Dinsaur-ology. But there's a good reason why I haven't studied the subject very much: Because It's Not That Important! You see, this guy acted like his view about dinosaurs was a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. Basically, he was telling me that either you believe this version of how the dinosaurs became extinct, or you didn't believe that the Bible was the Word of God and you didn't believe that there is a Creator of the universe. I tried to tell him that it was hard for me to believe that something so trivial as when the dinosaurs existed would play a role in God's Plan of Salvation, but he was having none of it. According to him, I had a decision to make, and apparently, what I believe right now is not one of the options. It took me quite a while to get him off the topic of the Importance of Dinosaurs and on to the topic of Is There Anything in Friday's Lesson That I Need To Be Worried About, but finally, he filled me in. I'm a little apprehensive about it, but LilKat1 is still going to the VBS program at the crazy church tomorrow. I would rather he not go, but he just loved it so much that I can't not let him go. And I figure that if they teach him anything wrong, I can always set him straight like I did today.

One big problem that I had was that the pastor did not seem to care about the emotional impact of telling a kid something that contradicts what their parents and teachers might be teaching them. I mean, this is an outreach ministry, but he didn't seem to care at all about looking at things from the perspective of the kids that they're supposed to be ministering to. If you're going to teach the kids something as controversial as this, you'd think that you'd want to put a little preemptive effort into alleviating any confusion that the kids might have. His thing was that he wanted to be able to get to the parents with his message about the dinosaurs through the kids. I don't know, just seems kind of rotten to me. Hopefully, things will go smoothly tomorrow.

4) Soccer! Soccer's still going on and I found out something about LilKat2 today. That kid has WHEELS! Oh my goodness! He's 4 years old, but he's on a Kindergarten team. Today, we played a game of Sharks and Minnows. In this game, the minnows have to get from one side of the field to the other side without being tagged by a shark. If they are tagged, then they become a shark in the next round. Well, at one point today, everyone was a shark except for LilKat2. He was the lone minnow. I said 'Go!' and he took off. He headed towards the sideline with the whole rest of the team chasing him. Then he turned the corner and flew past everyone, and made it to the other side untouched. Now, I understand more than anyone that 5 year olds are not known for their knowledge of pursuit angles. But still, none of the kids on the team came close to catching him from behind. LilKat2 is a Fast Little Boy.

5) Road Trip! We leave tomorrow to go to my dad's house. Should be a fun trip. We actually enjoy the travel part of it, and I'm looking forward to the drive.

First week of August

Lots of stuff going on this week. I thought I'd smash them all into one post:

1) Soccer started! We had our first practice on Tuesday. LilKat2's team was first, followed immediately by LilKat1. You know what? Running 2 soccer practices back-to-back takes a lot out of you! Especially when it's hot. The dinner schedule on soccer nights is a little crazy, we end up eating in shifts. But it was a lot of fun. We have our second practice today. I think it's going to be hot again, so I'm going to break out the dribble-the-ball-quickly-to-the-other-side-before-I-pummel-you-with-my-water-squirter game.

2) Got some free money at Costco yesterday! Mrs. BigKat and I had our weekly date night last night, and after we ate, we ended up at Costco (I know, Costco doesn't sound like a great date night, but we actually really enjoy walking around a store with no children. A lot). Earlier this summer, we bought a new tv. It's a nice tv, but just a shade too big for the space that we put it in. Mrs. BigKat wanted to see the tv that was a size smaller. We went to the tv section to take a look, and we noticed that our current tv was listed with a $100 rebate. After we were done shopping, I went to the customer service desk to find out if I could get the rebate for my earlier purchase. The lady said that it would be fine, but only if I bought my tv in the last 30 days. We went home, and I checked my receipt. 30 days! Perfect...no wait...there's 31 days in July...oops! 31 days! Not so perfect! I went back to Costco and saw the same lady and asked if it was ok even though I bought the tv 31 days ago. She asked her manager, and he said it was fine. Woo hoo! She handed me a $100 and off I went. Free money!

3) So last week, I ordered a big pile of games. Well, it turns out that the place I ordered from ran out of games, so they canceled my order. Which actually worked out nice because it saved me a lot of money! To celebrate my good fortune, I ordered a different big pile of games from Boards and Bits, one of my very favorite places to buy games. Here's what I got:

1. Taluva - A cool tile laying game where you build up a little island with volcanoes and stuff.
2. Ubongo das Duell - Another game in the Ubongo series. It's a puzzle game where you have to figure out the right way to fit these tetris-like pieces together. But this version is really hard! It uses crazy, monstrous, misfigured tetris pieces! And there's lots of them!
3. Roma - I've been wanting this for a while, but I've read that a new version was going to come out soon. Well, I couldn't take it any longer and just bought the old version. It's a 2 player card game that uses dice in an interesting way. Looks like a lot of fun.
4. Thebes - I got this mainly for game nights with my mom. She doesn't like it that I win so much, so I thought this would be a great game for us because it adds in a bit of a luck factor. It's an archeology game, where you travel to various places around the world in search of ancient artifacts. Part of the skill of the game involves doing your research so that you have the best chance to find something good. But in the end, even if you've done your homework, it's always possible that all you find is a big pile of dirt. This one looks like a very well made game, and I can't wait to try it out.
5. Scripts and Scribes - This game was the equivalent of standing in line at the grocery store, seeing a Whatchamacallit in the candy bin, and buying it even though you're not sure what it is, but it just looks kind of tasty. I hadn't heard of this game before, and I just saw it on the Boards and Bits website as I was about to check out. I researched it a bit and it looked pretty good. A lot of comparisons to For Sale, another game I like quite a bit. Always nice to have a game that you can play in just 10 or 20 minutes when you don't have time for a big game.
6. Mykerinos - We actually got to play this last night. What a great game! Another archeology game, although the theme doesn't seem as quite as important as in Thebes. It's really more of an abstract puzzle type game. You place cubes down on the excavation sites and try to control areas while blocking everyone else out. If you win a region, you get a card, which not only helps your score, but gives you special abilities in later rounds. Pretty simple, right? Well, there's a whole seperate component that you need to keep in mind: the museum. When you win a region, you have a choice of collecting a card, or getting a spot in the museum. Ignore the museum and your cards will not be worth that much at the end of the game. Focus too much on the museum and you won't have enough cards to gain control of the board. Also, you need to keep in mind when to save your resources for later rounds, and when to get as much as you can during the current round. This was really a fun game. Even as we were getting ready for bed, I kept muttering 'What a fun game!' It's funny, because the game itself it really small. The board is tiny, the pieces are tiny, the box is tiny. But the game itself is quite substantial. This one is one of my new favorites. The only problem with this game is that I don't know how to pronounce the name correctly...

4) My Friend Who Lies (MFWL) is getting married tomorrow. The wedding is at the beach. I'm taking the boys with me. They're very excited. This will be their first time at the beach ever! They've been wanting to go to a beach for so long.

5) My computer has been broken in one form or another for the past 2 weeks (ranging from 'Can't start SQL Server' to 'Can't run Windows in Safe Mode' to 'Randomly shutting down at some point during the day'). 3 video cards, 2 motherboards, 2 lcd's, a power supply and about 16 hours on the phone with tech support later, everything seems to be working fine again. Thank goodness!

Soccer Clinic

Soccer season is starting up again. Once again, I am going to be coaching LilKat1's team. But this year, I will also be coaching LilKat2's team as well. LilKat2 is going to be playing on a Kindergarten team, even though he is not yet in Kindergarten. The soccer organization needed some coaches and I volunteered to be one on the condition that LilKat1 be able to play as well.

But this year, LilKat1 will be on a 1st grade team. Last year, I went to this great soccer clinic where I learned all about how to coach Kindergarteners. Well, yesterday, I went to the clinic for coaching kids under 8 years old. I was quite excited about this. There was a lot of helpful information at the clinic last year that I was able to put into use in my practices, and I was looking forward to being able to find out some new helpful insights for my 1st grade team.

So how'd it go? Well, pretty much like last year...except the exact opposite.

Oh my goodness, this clinic was horrible. The guy that ran it used to play for the Irish national team as well as the local professional team apparently. But judging from the clinic, I don't know if he's ever taught little kids to play soccer in his life. At first, we were just doing some basic drills to warm up. Just dribbling the ball around and using different parts of our feet. Then he had us doing drills where we had to lift the ball off of the ground with our foot and then kick it from one foot to the other without letting it touch the ground. He told us to count how many times we could kick the ball. Immediately, I calculate the score that I think my kids will be able to get for this drill, either zero or one, with a very outside possibility of two.

Then he has us get in groups of 3 and pass the ball from one person to the other using only our heads. Again, not a drill that I see 1st grade kids performing very well.

After this, he has us start working 2 v 2. Now, we work drills like this sometimes, but we have to put them into a game form. When you're running 2 v 2, that means that everyone else is doing nothing. And for a 1st grade practice, having half the team doing nothing is usually not a good thing.

Anyhow, apparently, we weren't running the 2 v 2 drill how he wanted it to be run. He wanted the person with the ball to perform more 1 on 1 moves to beat the defender that was on him. Why? Because that's the problem with our National Team, you see. They can't beat their defenders one on one. If we're going to compete with teams like Argentina, then we really need to get our players developing better skills for attacking 1 on 1.

You see that confused look on your face that you have right now? That's the look that all 20 of us coaches had as he was telling us this.

My son is 6 years old. He's going into first grade. I have several goals as his coach, but preparing him for the National Team is not really anywhere on the list.

It's really too bad that this clinic was so horrible. Last year's clinic got me excited to start coaching. It gave me all sorts of great ideas that I wanted to try out. This year's was just a waste of time. I know that there were some first time coaches at this year's clinic that really could have benefited from the kind of helpful ideas that they talked about last year.

Actually, there was one good thing about the clinic. I found out that I can kick a ball in the air back and forth from foot to foot 9 times without letting it hit the ground. :)

Soccer Sneeze

So imagine you've just finished soccer practice. It's a hot August day, and you need a big drink of water. You grab your water bottle, take a big huge swig...and then sneeze! That happened to me today. It looked something like this (only without the booger...I think...well, no one mentioned anything about a booger, so I'm assuming there wasn't one...)

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!

At soccer practice today, LilKat1 scored his first soccer goal ever! We had a full group today, so we were able to do a 3 on 3 scrimmage. The kids were all in clump trying to get control of the ball. LilKat1 went right in the middle and gave it a good kick. The ball went right past everyone on the other team, traveled about 3/4 of the length of the field (about 20 feet altogether), and went right in the goal. I shouted at him 'LilKat1! You just scored a goal!' He was so pleased with himself. When we talked about it tonight, he said that it was his favorite part of practice, and he kept telling me about how he had never scored a soccer goal before. I was very proud of him.

When he played basketball, he would never go and get the ball. He only had a few rebounds, and the ones that he got were balls that happened to bounce into his hands. Yet here he was going after the ball in a big crowd of kids. I'm not sure how much of it is him growing up and how much of it is soccer just suiting him better. I know with basketball, he didn't like the idea of taking the ball from someone's hands (and in fact, in the YMCA league, players weren't allowed to steal the ball). And one time, he also got hit in the head with the ball that came off of the basket, which made him not so willing to stand near the hoop when his team was on offence. I actually remember him standing behind the basket so he wouldn't get hit. But in soccer, he seems a lot more confident going after the ball. Maybe it's because the ball is pretty much always a loose ball. No one is ever holding the ball. The closest they come is just standing near it. And if there's a big pile of kids around the ball, then they all seem to have equal claim to it. But I think there's something else to it as well. He doesn't mind getting right into the thick of things and getting tangled up with other kids and falling down. He thinks it's great fun. Much different than basketball. Who knows. Maybe he's just used to wrestling LilKat2 for his toys.

Well, in any case, I was a very proud Dad today. It was quite an accomplishment for him and he was very happy with himself. I felt really good for him. It was really a nice moment, seeing him attempt to do something that, for him, was rather difficult and succeeding. I hope this will help him to like the sport even more than he already does.

Soccer practice #2

We had our second soccer practice yesterday. Again, it was a lot of fun. This time, I had some rewards for the kids. We have 4 rules that you need to follow on the team: listen, follow directions, be respectful, and be a part of the team. I told the kids that if they followed all of the directions, they'd get a sucker. 2 of the kids did really well. 3 of the kids did not. I had told them that if they all did well, they'd all get suckers. But if only some of them did well, then none of them would get suckers. I think this was a mistake. I had one kid who was obviously trying extra hard. He really earned that sucker. I should've given it to the 2 kids that followed the rules. I'll correct that next week.

LilKat1 really enjoys soccer practice, but he's not as good at it as some of the other kids. I think part of it is his personality. He's very social and he likes to be silly. So during some of the games, he does silly stuff instead of what he's supposed to do. I wonder if part of this is him being afraid of not doing well during the game, and just acting silly in order to keep himself from failing.

I remember doing that when I was little. In 5th grade, we had to shoot free throws. Everyone watched while you shot and your score was the number that you made. I was supposed to be good at basketball. But I knew that I could not make free throws very well. So I started shooting the ball in goofy ways, imitating the shots of various NBA guys, Patrick Ewing, Jamaal Wilkes, Michael Jordan, etc. I think I missed all of them, but it made the class laugh. And it made my score irrelevant because the kids figured that I would've probably scored better if I was actually trying.

I did this in school as well. I rarely studied for tests and never did much homework. Part of it was because I had things that I'd rather do, but part of it was because I wanted to be the best. And if I tried my hardest and didn't get the high score, then it would mean that I wasn't the smartest in class. In high school, there was some competition amongst the kids to try and get the top scores on tests. Sometimes I'd get the top score and sometimes I didn't. But when I didn't, I was always ok with it because I knew that the other kids knew that I got my scores without studying.

Anyhow, back to soccer...I think LilKat1 just needs to get more comfortable with the ball. When we do drills that involve running around without the ball, he has a great time because he's good at that. But he's not as good with the ball (a lot like me!) and I think he just needs a lot of reps to get him used to it. There's one boy on the team that is very good with the ball. But his whole family plays soccer, so I think that he's already had a lot of ball time. I think that once LilKat1 gets that, he'll start to enjoy the games more because he won't have to worry about failing so much.

I think I'll have a talk to him about it too. Just to let him know that he doesn't need to worry about not doing well at first. That might help too.

First Soccer Practice

Yesterday, we had our first official soccer practice. Well, actually I take that back. It turned out that they hadn't reserved the practice fields so our first official practice will be Thursday. But the practice fields were open so we used them. So I guess it was an unofficial practice? Well, whatever it was, it was our first practice.

Wow, what a lot of fun! I think everyone had a great time. First of all, we came up with a team name. All the boys had different ideas, so we mashed them all together. Now we're the Power Beaver Monster Trucks. I hope another team doesn't pick that name too.

We did a bunch of fun games. They got a lot of good practice with the ball, but it was while doing something fun, rather than something boring. For example, we did 'Red Light, Green Light' with the ball. They had to practice going fast with the ball (green light), going slow with the ball (yellow light), and quickly stopping with the ball (red light).

The boys all seem very nice. They get tired quickly though. I had to give them 3 water breaks. One boy asked for a break after our first activity. I looked at my schedule and I hadn't planned a water break for 10 minutes. I was concerned that if I gave too many water breaks, it would take up too much practice time. I remember when I coached at the YMCA, the water breaks would take like 5 minutes. So I started my stopwatch and said 'Ok, you have 1 minute to get a drink. GO!' And they took off. I think we ended up with a 40 second water break. Some of the kids had to go pretty far to get to where their parents were to get their water. They actually got some good exercise just getting water!

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season. I think we're going to have a great time. LilKat2 is very sad that he is not old enough to be on the team. But after practice, I let him play with the cones and things. And we spent some extra time kicking the ball all around the practice field.

I asked LilKat1 if he had a good time at soccer practice and he gave a very enthusiastic 'Yes!' I think he's going to like this much more than his YMCA basketball experience. First of all, it's 3 v 3, rather than 5 v 5. 5 v 5 is way too many kids on the court with nothing to do. Also, in YMCA basketball, you can't steal the ball. So there really isn't anything to do on defense. Plus the drills that the team did were really boring. Now we do lots of fun drills, plus we have the benefit of having 2 coaches and only 6 kids. Which will hopefully mean no bored kids.

Also, LilKat1 loves his soccer stuff. He loves having his own ball. He loves having his own water bottle. He loves having his own soccer cleats. And he really loves having his own shin guards. He wears those things all the time. Just around the house, to the store, over his pajamas, whatever. He just loves wearing them. After practice, he wanted to go play on the playground equipment. Mrs BigKat said that he could, but he'd have to change into his regular shoes. He thought about it for a second and decided that he would just kick the ball around with his brother. He chose not to play at the playground because he didn't want to take off his soccer shoes! He's going to love it when he gets his official soccer jersey, sock, and shorts.

Oh, and I'm thinking of creating a Power Beaver Monster Truck t-shirt for myself to wear at practices. I could make a bunch of iron on patches so that the kids could make their own shirts if they wanted. That should be fun!

Soccer!

So this evening, I learned how to be a Kindergarten soccer coach. I've signed up to coach LilKat1's soccer team, and today, we had a U-6 (under 6 for all you non-youth-soccer types) coaches clinic. It was great! I am very excited about this whole soccer thing. Now keep in mind, that I know pretty much NOTHING about soccer. I know that you can't use your hands and it's hard to kick the ball where you want if you kick with your toe. That's about it. I still don't know a whole lot more about the actual sport of soccer than I did before I went to this clinic, but now I have some good ideas about how to help kids enjoy soccer and learn some basic skills.

I've coached other sports in the past and one of my big things for this age of kid is learning through play. In other words, set up games that help kids naturally learn various athletic skills and have a great time doing so.

I've been teaching K/1st grade Sunday School for about 9 years now, so I feel pretty confident about what kids this age like to do and don't like to do. I also love sports and am looking forward to helping the kids on my team have a great experience with organized soccer (or really organized sports in general).

The teacher had 4 L's that we had to remember. Unfortunately, I only remember 3 of them. One was no lines. Waiting in line is no fun. So try coming up with games where all of the kids are involved. Or if some kids have to wait, make sure that it's not boring for them while they're waiting (for example, if you have a fast paced game, waiting your turn may give you an opportunity to catch your breath). I remember when LilKat1 played basketball. It seemed like all of his drills had lines. Not so much fun. One kid would do something (and that something was not always that interesting) and the rest would just wait. So one of the challenges is to find activities where all of the kids are involved. Another 'L' was no lecturing. Keep instructions short (or if they're a little extended, then at least make them entertaining). The fourth 'L' was no bad language. Apparently this is something that you have to talk with your kids' parents about. I wish I could remember the other 'L' but I can't right now.

Anyhow, we have a team meeting on Wednesday, and then practice will start next Tuesday. I'm really looking forward to this. It seems like a lot of work, but I think it'll be a great time. I really hope LilKat1 likes it. I think he'll really enjoy the games we do. Hey, this is one advantage about being his coach. I get to plan games that I know he'll enjoy! Well, he already can't wait. I showed him the shoes, shinguards, and ball that I ordered for him and he is very excited about this.

Hard to believe that I'm actually coaching soccer! Not quite as strange as if I were coaching baseball, but it's up there!