Soccer Stud

It's amazing what being a few months older and losing your tonsils can do to a little kid's soccer game ;) As I mentioned on my blog this past fall, Makenna loves soccer but had a hard time even getting near the ball in games. She was much too kind and didn't like the idea of taking the ball away from someone else. Even though she struggled with this sport, she absolutely loves it so we tried again this spring. Well much to our surprise, she has become a soccer stud over the winter :) She scored 6 goals at last night's game! She was on fire! I honestly don't think anyone, from either team, scored at all while she was on the field. Granted, one of her goals was in the other team's goal, but at this age no one honestly cares! What amazed me the most was her aggression (which we saw none of last fall). She would get right in there using elbows and arms to get good body position and start kicking the ball all the way down the field and score all by herself (many times with a mob of little girls trailing her and trying to get in on the action as well). She was so adorable and would start jumping up and down and give us the standard Makenna thumbs up after each goal! She kept telling me before hand how she prefers games so much more over just drill days at soccer and now I see why!

But of course with every fun and good thing, has to be some negative. We already started in on the negative parent comments. We were a little embarrassed (even though honestly we shouldn't have been) about how dominating she was on the field. But our embarrassment soon faded into overprotectiveness when Josh overheard other parents making comments about her (about her height giving her an unfair advantage, being too old, etc). It makes me so mad. These kids are four people!!! And no we didn't hold our seven year old back in the four year old tiny kickers club so she could wallop all of your four year olds! Get over it! She creamed your kids and was being nice and having fun doing it all at the same time. I can understand if she was being a bad sport about it, but she wasn't. Many of these parents could learn a few lessons on sportsmanship from her. I'm so proud of her because she gave it her all, enjoyed being part of a team, listened to her coach, and liked socializing on the sidelines almost as much as being on the field.