Hayley and Kate Minter

Hayley played in her first “official” soccer game today.

Since she was about three, Hayley has taken soccer classes but the program she was in didn’t focus on any real skills at first.  Within the last year, they focused a little more on skills but they still never played real games.  They would divide the class up into two teams and basically just throw the ball into the middle of the group and let them have at it.  It was fun for the kids, and good exercise, but not much team-player preparation.  However, they were 3-, 4-, & 5-year olds, and I suppose the coaches did what was appropriate for those age groups.

Hayley had one soccer practice this past week where they dribbled the ball and took some shots on goal.  Then today, her team and another team (of 5- & 6-year-olds) squared off against each other in what was pretty close to a real game.  There were no goalies, but they had a referee, two goals, two teams, and they lined up four kids from each team in the center circle, then had one kid kick the ball to start play.  Each team tried to get the ball to their goal and, overall, I thought all the kids did a decent job.  Hayley’s team scored early on, but that would be the last goal for them.  Enter “Pele.”

One little boy on the opposing team was almost unstoppable.  If this kid got the ball, he would tear down the field and score.  I stopped counting after his sixth goal in just a few minutes.  Finally, the coach of his team called for substitutions because she could see where this was going.  That meant that Hayley got swapped out too, but they continued to sub the players in and out throughout the game so Hayley played about three or four times.

I happened to be sitting next to little Pele’s family (btw, this kid and his folks were white–I’m not making fun of Hispanics, I’m just referencing the famous soccer player, Edson Arantes Do Nascimento), consisting of his parents, his younger brother, and a set of grandparents.  The grandparents and the mom all were wearing red shirts and khaki shorts, in spirit of the team’s red jerseys, I can only assume.  Little Brother wasn’t really interested in Pele’s game, so Grandma had him on her lap trying to keep him entertained.  Dad was standing by with the camcorder.  Every time little Pele scored a goal, he would look toward his family and punch his fist in the air triumphantly.  The family would wave back, chuckling superciliously.

I know it’s probably difficult to make a little kid understand about being part of a team because at this age, they only DO want to score goals.  They even steal the ball from their own teammates.  Hayley was disappointed that she didn’t score a goal, but we praised her for the effort she made and for her numerous blocked shots (she kept Pele from scoring at least twice).  I hope that I can make my child understand in the future that if she is playing a team sport, she needs to be part of the team and not try to take all the glory for herself.

Was it a little bit mean of me to laugh on the inside when little Pele tripped on the ball five feet from the goal and ate some turf?  Perhaps.  His parents should be proud of him for being a good goal scorer; but I believe they have some work ahead of them in the future in helping him understand what it means to help out your team and not just yourself.

We are very proud of Hayley for playing well in her first game.  She came very close to scoring a goal and, like I mentioned previously, stopped several shots.  Hayley likes playing goalie with her Daddy at home, but they don’t appear to do that at this age.  Perhaps in another year or two she’ll have a chance to play goalie in a real game, if she still wants to.

Hayley got a couple of free kids passes from school to the Alzafar Shrine Circus that is at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio this weekend.  So we decided to take the kids to their first circus.

It was a smaller-scale circus than, say, a Ringling Brothers circus but I think the girls enjoyed it just the same.  Before the actual circus commenced, they had pony and elephant rides, bounce houses, and other attractions, all available for a nominal fee of course.  We didn’t have time before the start of the circus to do any of the extra stuff, so we got the girls cotton candy and found our seats (Kate had been asking for cotton candy and popcorn for days, ever since we told her we were going to the circus).  We saw the standard circus acts–elephants, tigers, trapeeze artists, clowns, daredevils, etc.  I think we were all entertained.

Then during “half-time,” we went down to the floor to let the girls ride an elephant.  I had no idea I would have to ride it too!  Since Kate was so little, they made me sit behind her.  Um, I actually rode on an elephant probably twenty years ago but I didn’t remember how weird it feels.  There were about six or seven kids plus me on the back of this poor animal and I was on the very back, right above her hips, swaying from side to side as the elephant walked.  I’m not too keen on heights.  I’ve ridden a horse before too and I definitely prefer the horse.

We returned to our seats for the second half of the show.  Hayley covered her ears during the loud dirt-bikes-going-round-in-round-in-a-giant-metal-ball act, but she liked when “Cannonball” Smith was shot from his cannon.

When we were leaving after the show, Hayley said, “I’d never been to a circus before, but I think I’d like to go again.”

I bought new underwear for Hayley the other day, and Kate wanted some too.  I thought, why not?  She’ll wear them eventually, right?

Well, Kate wanted to wear them as soon as we got home.  I let her since it was pretty close to bedtime and we would have to put her back in a diaper shortly.

The following day, she wanted to wear her underwear again.  Being a sucker, and feeling sorry for her because she was sick, I let her wear a pair again.  About 30 minutes later, she went to her potty, pulled down her panties and peed, much like Hayley and I had showed her how to do the previous night.  What a big girl!  I thought.  Wow, this potty training stuff is easier than I remember…

How wrong I can be.

I was busy doing housework and I heard Kate go into her bathroom again.  I went in to discover poop everywhere–in her panties, on her potty, on her legs, on the floor.  She had begun to go in her panties and tried to make it to the bathroom but in pulling her panties off, she just smeared the poop all over.  Oh, boy.  I couldn’t be mad at her, though–she had made a valiant effort.

After cleaning up the mess, I once again relented to letting her wear another pair of panties (thank goodness for the 7-pack).  But after two more accidents (both pee, thankfully), Mommy had had enough for one day and it was back to diapers.

Of course, what I should have done was purchase some Pull-Ups for her to use before real panties, and that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend.  I don’t want to discourage her desire to use the potty but I also don’t want to spend my entire day cleaning up mess after mess and washing out countless pairs of underwear.  I now realize that Kate can’t yet distinguish the feeling of the diaper versus the underwear.  If she’s totally naked on her bottom half, she’s nearly accident-free; she just runs right into the bathroom when she has to go and goes.  But I think having something on her bottom confuses her right now.  Which is why I’m hoping the Pull-Ups won’t be too much like diapers for her.  We’ll just have to try them and see.

Either way, she’s not even two years old yet, so I’m not expecting her to be potty-trained too quickly.  She’s already way ahead of where Hayley was at her age, and Hayley was totally day-trained by 2 1/2.

(For those of you who haven’t read about or have forgotten about “Ugly,” please revisit this post).

It has been several weeks since we were at Sam’s Club but the time came when we had to go back.  I talked with Kate before we went, telling her that we would most likely see “Ugly” again in the store.  She seemed to be looking forward to it, even saying that she was going to kiss him.  I thought that maybe if she could touch him and see that he wasn’t real, she wouldn’t be as scared of him.

I strapped Kate into the basket at Sam’s and we strolled through the entrance.  We didn’t have to look hard for Ugly–he was right there at the entrance as part of a big Halloween display.  As soon as we stepped in front of him, we triggered the motion sensor and he began to speak.  Kate’s eyes widened as she watched him, and as he began to pull his face off to reveal the scary bones and flashing eyes beneath, Kate trembled from head to toe, screwed up her face, and began crying, “No! No!”  She struggled to get out of her restraint and into my arms.  I held her as I tried to calm her down, touching Ugly’s face to show her that he was just rubber and plastic and pointing out that his feet were stuck on a pedestal.  But she was having none of it.  She buried her face in my chest, held onto me with a death grip, and wouldn’t move (see also).

Unfortunately, what I had to do next had us standing at a distance from Ugly but in a place where we could still see him.  Kate made sure to keep her face turned away so she didn’t have to look at him.  I finished up at the photo area as quickly as I could and we began to move further away from Ugly.  When we got to the back of the store, I finally managed to get Kate to let go of me and sit in the basket, with the help of a lollipop bribe.

A few times after this, she ducked her head going around a corner thinking Ugly might pop out again.  We managed to make it out of the store without seeing him again, with Kate repeating phrases like, “I don’t like him,” “Ugly way over there?” and “He stuck on pedestal?”

Most unfortunately, we had to return to Sam’s about an hour later to pick up the pictures I had dropped off, which meant passing right by Ugly again.  By this point in time, Kate was much calmer, but when we entered the store, she buried her face again and even squeezed her eyes shut so there was no chance of seeing him.

Poor baby.  I hope she’s not scarred for life by Ugly.  Just when I thought she had almost forgotten about him, she got a frightening reminder of just how ugly he is.  I think I agree with Grandma Queen that Halloween may not be Kate’s favorite holiday…

Kate doesn’t usually go right to sleep when I put her down for her nap.  She usually spends at least ten minutes (and in the case of today a half-hour) talking or singing to herself.  Lately, it’s been singing, and as she jumps from a few notes of one song to the next, she sounds like a commercial for a kids’ compilation album:

“Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh…I love you, you love me…This old man, he played one…Mary had a little lamb, little lamb…”

And on and on until she wears herself out.

I wish I could videotape it but I wouldn’t be able to get in her room without disturbing her.  I think it’s cute, and she’s not crying or upset, so I just let her sing until she falls asleep.

A conversation at dinner the other night.

ME: “Hayley, did you just kick me in the knee under the table?”

HAYLEY: “Yeah….it was an accident.”

ME: “Well, what do you say?”

HAYLEY: “….hiiiiiii-YA!”

Holly about spit out her food. I had to explain to Hayley that if you accidentally kick somebody, you should say “Excuse me” or “I’m sorry,” and that “hiiiiii-YA!” is reserved for when you are vanquishing your enemies with your Kung Fu technique.

I think we may need cut down Hayley’s time playing “Kung Fu Panda” on the DS.