The Ladies are Making Me Buggy
Quick soccer update for our millions of fans around the world. We won our game last Saturday and my 1st grade girls now have a winning record for the first time ever. We are 4-3 with three games left in the season. Something has clicked for them this last game or so. They are finally passing the ball, spreading the field better, and getting after the girls on the other team. It's great to watch the girls out there. They are now going into games with the expectation that they are going to win which is a far cry from where they were at this point last season. That's the main thing that I wanted for these girls. Besides becoming good soccer players I wanted them to learn to compete, feel like winners, and have fun.
That being said I am bracing myself for the collapse or at least big stumble. I don't want it to happen, but I'm trying not to let my expectations get away from me. Practice yesterday was a good example of what I'm worried about. Some of them were distracted the whole time looking for lady bugs. Others were talking noise and then getting upset when things weren't going their way. All of them had a large degree of whineyness to them. They were all bitching at each other at different points yesterday and I was trying not to lose my cool. At the end of practice I pulled them together and gave them a talking to about team work and how we need to support each other. I told them that we are friends on the team and do not complain or place blame. Then I took all of their collected ladybugs crushed them under my foot and told them that if we lost on Saturday it would be because of they were jacking around at practice.
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17 comments:
you ladybug killer!!! how could you! you are no longer krypto dags. you're meanie weenie and i don't want to talk to you anymore. harruphhh.
how's that for an example of a first grader's rant. pretty close? must have been a national thing. my first grader got her butt grounded yesterday for her smart mouth. :-( sometimes being a mommy just is ~not~ fun.
That is exactly the type of stuff I was hearing yesterday, till I drew back my pimp hand.
This is exactly why Little Man refuses to finish baseball season. That bouquet of flowers he handpicked in right field that was crushed by his coach after a dropped pop fly was lovely, just lovely.
We all hope and pray there is no butterfly invasion on Saturday.
So nicknames... they're pretty cool, huh?
yeah, Dag's nickname could be bugkiller or killjoy. Or joy-of-bugs killer.
I hate bugs.
we could just call him buger, lady[bug] kill[er] but i think q and gyuss will just get confused and excited so i think for myself i'll just use dags for now. :-)
heather - Thanks for noticing how quickly they would get confused.
dmarks - Me too. We should try to get rid of them. You know for the environment.
plug - Thanks for your support. I would expect nothing less.
lit - If there is I am screwed. No way we would win then.
fringes - Trust me I get about seven bouquets of hand picked flowers and an assortment of pollen bearing weeds given to me every practice by my girls. I think they know about my allergies and are trying to kill me. I say thank you every time.
dagromm - Man, I know what you're sayin'. I hear that. I've been there.
Watch out, Dagromm! You're blog-speakin' to your own self. Hang in there, Man. Saturday's here, and it's Coach time. BE STRONG!
so how did the girls do? any good bouquets? do the girls realise that most with most species of ladybugs that only the males have spots? (at least that's what the resident animal planet addict mentioned when she saw the picture you posted.)
They played a great first half only outdone by the awfulness of their second half. My daughter and about two others really battled the entire time they were in there. The others had their moments but not enough of them. I can take part of the blame. I usually switch the girls around during the game, but I probably should just leave them where I know that they play best. I just like to give everybody a chance to score a goal and you don't really get that opportunity on defense. We'll see.
It was probably my daughters best game of the season. She scored two goals and set some nice things up. This is the first game that I coached that I felt the ref did us wrong. I didn't bitch (until now). I don't think it's very becoming. I also felt like the other coach was an ass. He shook my hand after the game, but didn't bother to share pleasantries as is the custom.
One more thing. Kind of a minor victory. I had a girl who hadn't shown up the last couple of weeks so I called and talked to her mom. Apparently she hadn't been wanting to come. Her mom wanted her to finish out the season, but didn't want to force her to do anything that she didn't want to do. I stopped by their place on Friday night to talk to the girl. I let her know that we missed her and would like to have her back. I told her that we wanted her to still be a part of our team, but that she didn't have to if she wasn't having fun. She said that she liked it and wanted to come play. Anyway she came to the game on Saturday and said that she would be at practice on Tuesday. I told her how much I appreciated her coming.
In the end if she doesn't want to continue with soccer then that's fine with me, but I wanted to pay her a visit so that she felt good about her decision either way. I also wanted her to know that her team liked her and would always think of her as a friend.
YAY!! good coach! how do you feel about moving to northern new york to coach cheeks? she wants to play soccer next year but every one around here gets so damn serious about it.:-( they're kids for pete's sake! let them have fun. i love that you took the time to talk to your 'missing' player. and that you switch everyone around to give them all a fair shot at scoring. they may not win often but at least everyone is learning the basics of all the positions. not just 'well, you do best at goal keeper so that's what you have to play from now till you quit the sport.' coaches that do that to the little ones suck in my book.
I tend to agree. Especially at an early age. Goalie is a perfect example. I've seen multiple times where the kid that is best at it gets stuck back there, when they want the chance to go out and run and shoot the ball. The kid gets bored or angry and defense isn't a position that you get as much recognition for.
I've had lots of kids that beg to play other positions then what I know they are better suited for, but they signed up to play to have fun. It's their team as much as it is mine. So I try to give them opportunities. Most of the time they come around to the conclusion that they really are better where I put them. If you don't give them the chance then I'm afraid they'll turn out like Uncle Rico from Napolean Dynamite.
please don't think less of me but i still haven' seen nd. i have it burned but haven't gotten around to it. or the other 9000 i have sitting and waiting. i also have the last 10 or 12 episodes of the office, which i've never seen a single episode of. go figure.
I don't think less of you Heather. ND is ok when you watch it, but becomes a lot funnier in hind sight. At least that's my opinion.
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