Another First

This is Anderson in his Internacional (best soccer team in the world) jersey. Today he had his first official soccer class. He hasn't been able to take soccer class until he turned five. He turns five in a couple of weeks but the coach allowed him to start a little early. For about two years he's been wanting to take a soccer class. He plays with Garrett all the time and he loves it.

For four and a half years he was the baby in our family. He has been constantly told how fast he is, how cute he is, how good he is at everything. This has, to say the least, loaded him up with confidence.

When he got to practice today he was all smiles. The coach paired him up with a five year old to do some drills. All of the other kids are six to eight year olds.

Today was a day when I was happy that we speak English in our house, because as Anderson was doing the drill with this five year old he looked at me from across the field and yelled, "Hey dad, this kid is five years old and he stinks at soccer!" Lovely.

Probably harmless, but you never know who speaks English here. I quietly told him to not say things like that.

He had a great time with the drills. He is full of energy and was constantly talking to the coach as well as all the kids. Like I said, confidence is not his problem. Then it was time for the game. He was thrilled......until the game actually started with the bigger kids.

In the first minute of the game he got squished like a pancake by one of the bigger boys and the game had to stop because he was crying. He busted up his knee on that one.

He got knocked down a couple of other times but bounced up.

The thing that just killed me was when he used his hands on a play (which is illegal) and his entire team of bigger kids made fun of him. He stopped, put his head down and just wailed.

I confess I wanted to pound the other kids for making fun of my little four year old but I stayed still to see what the coach was going to do. To be honest, strong discipline is not a Brasilian strong point. But I was impressed. He quickly loved on Anderson (a Brasilian thing that I just love) and then called every team member around Anderson. He really got on the kids and then made every one of them apologize to Anderson. He then told them if they ever did that again he would kick them out of practice. When practice was over he then came to me and apologized. I told him that those things happened sometimes but I really appreciated the way he handled things.

After practice two women who had been watching came up and told Anderson how brave he was and how strong he was on the field. They then gave him a hug and kissed him.

As we walked off I held my little boy and told him how proud I was of him to play with guys way bigger than him. I asked him if he liked soccer practice and if he wanted to return.

He said, through sobs, that he liked it and wanted to come back but asked me to pray for him to be "tougher."