Pixie Hollow

Annalise before her first soccer practice.

It's funny how, even when I think I don't want it to, my hand just seems to have a pre-programmed reflex to shoot up into the air whenever someone asks for a volunteer. I almost always enjoy the job after I've gone through the intial phase of wondering, "What have I gotten myself into THIS time?"

...and so it goes with soccer...

The first question you might want to ask a soccer coach would be something like, "Have you ever coached soccer before?" I have not. The next obvious statement might be, "Oh, so you played soccer. Was that in school or on a recreational league somewhere?" I have not played soccer. Ever. Not in a pick-up game, not in a coached game, not ever. In fact, when I mentioned to Stacy that I was coaching, her first response was to laugh right out loud before asking, "You? Soccer?" (Really, she's not a mean person! She's just seen me attempt to play team sports on several previous occasions).

Pixie Hollow

The lucky team to have me picked as their coach is Annalise's U-5 Soccer Team. They are a hopelessly adorable group of girls who love to giggle, kick, and run around playing Tinkerbell on the soccer field. I love them to death because they don't really care that I can't play soccer. They love that I play Tinkerbell with them and give them Fairy Dust before each practice. Annalise looks forward to practice each week and I think she's going to enjoy the sport more than I ever could have imagined.

So far we've had two practices and it's generally chaos each time. I've managed to teach them how to dribble, where to dribble, and to avoid hand contact with the ball. They have a good shot at getting a goal whenever they have the ball and our next challenge is to convince them to spread out far enough from each other to avoid smashing their Pixie Wings. Once they have that down, I think they're going to be a darn good team!

Our games start on September 11th (in time for Daddy to see her suit up in her green uniform one time before he goes). Watch for photos and send lots of good Tinkerbell thoughts her way!