Sunday, April 17, 2011

Spiderman Plays Soccer

We actually had spring on Friday. Honest-to-goodness, sunny, bird-singing spring. I am ignoring the smattering of white stuff on the deck this morning, because winter is on its way out. Hopefully for good. With the temporarily good weather, Nolan has enjoyed many days of playing superhero in the great outdoors. He's pretty insistent that he will either be Spiderman or Batman when he grows up.

In the meantime, he wears his Spiderman mask much of the time - this is annoying because every time the mask goes on, the glasses and hearing aids come off. Which means that Spiderman's Mommy gets frustrated and sends Spiderman on a hearing aid/glasses finding mission. I need to invent a mask that can go on OVER glasses and hearing aids, without causing their removal. Maybe I'll just sew the kid a cape and hide the mask - capes don't interfere with his whole equipment set up.

A couple of weeks ago, we went down to the elementary school to sign both boys up for summer soccer. Matt will play in the under-6 league, and Spiderman Nolan will play in the under-4 league. Normally, I wouldn't sign a not-yet-four year old up for soccer, but Nolan is insistent that he play sports like Matthew. Actually, he grabbed the pen and started to fill out his own application (i.e. scribbled all over one of the application pages) and shouted "I pway SOCCER!" So we signed him up.

From what I understand, the under-4 league (composed of three year olds - the minimum age to play) does not really play full-on games like the bigger kids. From talking to the parent volunteers, I think every kid gets a ball, and they run around like nuts on a field for an hour. Nolan's division doesn't wear jerseys - they get T-shirts and the parents supply a pair of black shorts. This is a good thing, because Nolan wears a size 2T-3T shorts, and the soccer league's "small" size is probably a size 5 or 6. Matthew's division will play actual games, and they get jerseys. I predict a lot of time spent on the sides of local soccer fields this summer!

I finally got Nolan's birth certificate in the mail, to prove that although he is the size of your average two year old (36.5 inches), he will be nearly four years old in June. He should be assigned to a team pretty soon. I hadn't thought about it, but Julia's mom brought up a good point about hearing aids getting wet on the soccer field... perhaps we'll don the Ear Gear when we're going to soccer practice. Too bad Ear Gear doesn't have an extension to hold on glasses, too!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Ilarya wanted to do dance instead of soccer but the U4 group here is similar to what you described only the parents have to play too. Liliana plays in the U6 group because of where her birthday falls. She is one of the oldest on her team. They play actual games that are 3 on 3 on the smallest fields. All new players get t-shirts and parents provide shorts. Older groups have jerseys. (U7 and up I think.) I wondered if sitting on the sidelines would be boring but it is actually pretty fun. The games are only about an hour. Just make sure you pack your folding chairs, water and sunblock.

leah said...

Good to know! If Nolan were two months older, he would be on the U6 team. That kind of freaks me out since he is so small - he'll be the oldest on his team, too, but I'm totally OK with that! I wonder if the parents play with the U4 kids out here...it will be interesting to see!

We still have two months until soccer season starts. That's probably a good thing, considering the SNOW that is falling right now! SHeesh. Winter, be gone!

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Oooo, soccer in the summer sounds a lot better than spring/fall (wet and muddy).

I forget, does Nolan have an FM yet? We sometimes used Tate's during soccer because he couldn't hear the coach yelling to him what to do. Probably won't be an issue with the U4 group, as the field is tiny and things are calmer... sort of!

I have a friend that calls little-kid soccer "magnet ball" because they all go for the ball like iron shavings on a magnet. Everyone getting their own ball and running around like nuts sounds a lot more fun and realistic!

And Leah, maybe this is getting way ahead of myself, but eventually if Nolan keeps wanting to play and he is way smaller than everyone else, you can probably "waiver" him down an age-group. I've done that with Gunnar. All I need is a note from the doctor saying it's appropriate, ie he's not going to tower over other players and potentially hurt them. Probably TMI for now, but there ya go :D

Have lots of fun!!!

Julie

leah said...

Julie, that is really helpful. I never thought about moving him down a notch in age level. We sort of did that for preschool - there are two three year old classes, and we put him in the class that has older 2 year olds and younger 3 year olds. He's still the smallest one in there, but the difference isn't very much (especially between Nolan and the two kids that started in his class at the age of 2). It makes sense that you could do that with sports!

He might have a growth spurt over the summer - both of my kids seem to grow more in the summer months.

Rena said...

too bad he doesn't want to be Superman. No mask.

Joey Lynn Resciniti said...

They do have Ear Gear that attaches to glasses! Go to gearforears.com and look for Ear Gear Eyeglasses.

tammy said...

Totally agree with summer soccer vs spring - complete mud pit - which though, I'm sure the boys would love. Kailyn's playing this spring for the first time in quite awhile. She's always been small for her age too, and she's playing with 4th & 5th graders (she's in 4th). These girls tower over her and can get brutal and all I see is my skinny minny out there right in the middle of it all. I wish I would've checked to see if she could play on the 3rd grade team like Julie suggested.

btw, Nolan looks so dang cute with his new glasses!