Kieran's First Year of Soccer

We gave Kieran the option of playing soccer this year, which is a year earlier than Reed started but thought it might get some of the obstacles Reed dealt with out of the way. Kieran was excited to sign up but then when it came time to start playing said he didn't want to. We told him that since he had signed-up he would need to play but that he would have the choice to play or not play again next year. The first few games were a hot mess with K standing in the middle of the field confused by what to do, I questioned whether we had pushed him to start too young, and Jon had a hard time even watching the games. Something switched in him around game four and he turned into a soccer machine, scoring a ton of goals, and regularly getting the ball away from the other team. It was so fun to cheer him on and watch his skill set grow each week. It was also crazy to see how competitive he became - quickly being disappointed and visibly sad when the other team scored a goal. By the end of the season he was displaying strategies that some of the kids on Reed's team (2-3 years older than him) didn't have - liking staying back from the pack but tracking the ball waiting for it to pop out, waiting inbounds when the pack when out of bounds knowing they would have to return, and angling through the field to cut off other players from moving down the field.

Kieran's soccer coach was a mom who volunteered because she didn't think her daughter would play unless she was on the field. She didn't know much about soccer or coaching so most of the kids learned a lot more from the games than practice. Thankfully Clara was on Kieran's soccer team and Shannon took over most game day warm ups and even Jon and Kevin ran a practice when the coach's daughter was sick. Clara and Kieran were super cute together, often holding hands on the field or chatting away mid game. Clara really liked telling Kieran what to do and K usually listened to Clara's advice over anyone else. I'm really glad we gave Kier the opportunity to play this year and hope he wants to play again next year. Of course he always had a large group cheering for him just like his brother and he chose to be #4 because that's his favorite number.