Polishing Horns

The soccer bug has bitten us in the "Hatter" household. The 5-year-old, the Songbird as it were, has been signed up to play soccer down at the soccer complex on Buckwalter. We opted to let her do this rather than drive so far to go to dance class. It was welcomed by all.

But, there were some things, some unforeseen things that are creeping up on us all. The first is the bugs. Good god almighty the bugs at 6-7pm are horrendous. And it is sand gnats, which means really, it doesn't matter how much bug spray you use, it won't work. Well that is fine, I mean somebody has to feed the sand gnats until the mosquitoes can take over right?

The next is a "problem" with aggressive behavior... or the lack thereof. The Songbird is not exactly what I would call aggressive at all. In fact she may well be one of the meekest one's out there. I might could help, but it will take help from her mother-my wife. When I tried to tell her to be a more aggressive player, to go kick the ball, that the other team will not be nice, that she needs to take the ball and put it in the opposing team's goal... I got the what-for from the wife.

Why? Because she wants our little angel to stay that way and if I teach her anything else, well why would I do that? I'll tell you why, after going to a scrimmage game in where her own team was cut in two. If we don't do something she will likely quit. She came up to me after about 15 minutes of being 10 steps behind everyone else... and ball... with a pouty face like you would not believe.

I asked her "what's wrong?" And she said "Nobody will let me kick the ball." It was a Hallmark moment. I told her that not everybody is going to be a nice guy, and not everybody is going to let you kick the ball, because if they did, then they might lose. I'm hoping that I turned on a light for her, because really, getting eaten alive by those pesky sand gnats really isn't very much fun. I'd hate to do that just to make my child pout. I mean, I'm sure we could come up with something for my kid to do at home, where I don't get eaten alive, and costs me nothing.

The only part that was missing was my wife. She was inside, putting Augustus to bed and working on her graduate class work. If she would have been witness she would see that you do in fact need to put devil horns on that angel, or do something else. Sports is just like that. Not necessarily bad or mean, but you can only have one winner, and that usually goes to the fastest, more skilled, most aggressive player out there. I'm not saying I'm going to train my daughter to play on the US soccer team. Hell I don't even care if they win, but I will make it possible for her to possibly score a goal... Maybe.