it's official.

i am a soccer mom.

[squeeee!]

cue the orange slices. enough to share. obv. cue the cleats. even though we were to find out there was no pitch so next week, we will be in runners. cue the proud parents. as in both of us. both totally excited and totally proud and totally supporting marcus on his first day as a member of little kickers fc. lk fc. it could not get cuter.

the truth? for a 2-year-and-5-month-old to be engaged in any one activity for an hour solid is a tall order. and he probably would have stayed and played and kicked and ran for another 2 hours. he was in toddler-boy heaven. plus, two of his best buds are also enrolled which meant he was instantly comfortable in a new place, with otherwise new people and coaches, and just picked it up and ran with it...literally.

if you didn't know when you started reading that i'd post far too many photos of this day in history, you don't know this soccer mom well enough :)

i love the photo of marcus and liam on the bench in the bottom right. sometimes at this age you forget how tiny these little guys are as they are certainly not babies but not quite boys. somewhere perfectly in the middle. aren't they so little and ridiculously cute on the bench together?

here are my top highlights of the day:
1. the intro activity where the team sits in a circle and they said hi to each little kicker and each coach one at a time. marcus loves learning new names.
2. the warm ups - it is pretty funny to see a room of 2-3 year old little kickers doing an entire warm up routine like they are little pro players :)
3. the uniforms. i would pay the registration fee just to see my little guy in that official kit every saturday. even the mini-soccer balls and mini-nets are branded 'LK FC'. it is totally pro-style and was just so exciting for us!
4. seeing james try his.very.best. not to get too emotional watching marcus. this was a huge day for daddy as he is from manchester and lives. breathes. eats. sleeps. soccer and has dreamt of marcus putting on a kit for 2 years and 5 months. it was awesome.
5. my orange slices were a hit with the other kids too! what a great way for marcus to make new buddies during the water breaks by sharing the orange slices! love that.
6. marcus is my little striker. he sees a ball, and a net, and he just does the math and makes it happen. he is a great little kicker and passer.
7. coach phil "marcus, run around the pilons! weave in and out of them!"
marcus "i running and i kicking the ball!" [runs alongside the pilons with his eye on the ball and net on the other side of the drill set-up and just scores a goal instead. we will work on his agility :)]
8. great group of kids and parents! happy to meet new peeps and even happier to spend saturday morning with some of my fave moms!

clearly we can't wait to go back for more.

see you next saturday coach phil and coach mark and coach dan!

-kare
[very proud little kickers football club soccer mom]