My Four Boys & Me: Lincoln's first season playing soccer

This post is of soccer from throughout the month of May, ending with his last game on May 29th. Our friend Natalie coached the team, and her son Gabe was on the team too. After 2 years of attending Noah's sporting events Lincoln was excited to be old enough to play himself now too! Watching Lincoln play reminded me how young he really was. Our sweet little guy was: pretty spacy sometimes, didn't understand at first that you should be happy if your team scores a goal even if you aren't the one who put it in, had to often be reminded what direction they were supposed to be going and that he couldn't be the one to throw the ball in every time, and we had to have the times he ran off the field to hug mom during the game kept to a minimum (but honestly, how could I not at least partly love that...that won't last long). Oh, and really the game was all about the post game treats. Honestly.

Lincoln agreed to let me snap a few pictures of him before one of his games early in May, but first he needed to blow on a few dandelions. I'm guessing that his pre-game routine won't include blowing dandelions someday, so I decided I should take pictures of that too...

Now here is Lincoln showing me his big strong muscles!

And he insisted on an action shot too. It cracked me up to watch him running while looking at the camera smiling. I can't even look at this picture without giggling.

When we were telling Noah that Natalie was going to be the coach of Lincoln and Gabe's team, she mentioned to Noah that she'd need his help and he could be the team's assistant coach. Whether she meant that or was trying to make him feel like an important older brother...Noah took it seriously. He usually insisted on wearing his old soccer jersey and loved being able to help out during warm ups before the game. I don't think that most of the kids on the team realized that he was 2 years older since he was the same height as them, but Noah didn't seem to notice. He really was perturbed that we wouldn't let him be out on the field coaching during the game like Natalie was though. So! Here was a team huddle...with both coaches:

Team cheer!

And of course, being the "assistant coach" entitles you to taking part in the half-time orange slices, right?

Look how cute they look out there ready for kick off.

Now for a few clips from various games. The first one is cute. Lincoln is actually sticking with trying to get the ball, and you can see him decide that it's enough with the bunch-ball nonsense trying to turn the ball and he just picks it up and puts it where he needs it and plays on...

In this clip the ball goes out of bounds, but Lincoln just kept playing (which makes sense to me for this age anyway)...but the other kids are kind of waiting for a coach to enforce the throw in and when they don't the re-converge on the ball. After a minute of trying to get the ball back Lincoln just pushes the other player down and play on. Perhaps I should feel bad, but honestly usually it was my kid on his butt so I didn't...besides, the other team scores right after that anyway :)

I'm posting this clip for two reasons. One, Linc is throwing in the ball which he loves...and secondly, you get a peek and the spacy antics of 4 year olds on a soccer field (and the patient persistence of their coach)!