September = Soccer = Insanity

Soccer season is crazytown! For the past two seasons Derek and Taylor have played on opposite nights, so we are hanging out at the fields Tuesday through Friday. Add in my Mutual on Tuesday night, Derek's piano lessons and Scouts and things get really crazy. I just remind myself over and over that it's just 6 weeks. I think I add undue stress by demanding that the entire family come to all games. But once we get there we have a fun time together. 

 Both of my boys love playing goalie and volunteer every game. It is too much stress for me to watch. I want to yell at the other team "don't you dare score on my baby!" I have to send Dave over to coach them when to jump on the ball. And of course they do get scored on but they keep volunteering for more turns. Crazies!

Ryan started walking at 14 months.

He is looking up at his daddy. You can see the love in his eyes!

You just know the main reason for playing soccer is the treats at the end of each game.

Derek is great on defense as he loves to power-boot the ball.

Our city league has a contract with the worst photographers! Ask any parent and they will agree with me (Denise, back me up on this!) So this time I paid for the picture, so I wouldn't feel guilt, and snapped my own picture over their shoulder. I have to say that this picture turned out way better, but that's not too hard to do.

Don't feel bad for him. He's just grouchy that I was taking his picture.

So it was literally THE last play of THE last game (Oct. 4) and Derek was diving to stop the ball from going in the goal and he got tangled up with an opposing player and they both went down on Derek's shoulder.(Seconds later the whistle blew for the game to end. Urggh..) I didn't see this happen since I was on the opposite end of the field, but I could see a crowd gathered around a player lying on the grass. Like every mother, I scanned to find my child, didn't find him, and realized that the kid on the ground was mine! I jumped up and ran the length of the field,  and sure enough Derek was lying there on his back and that's when I got the story from the coach. She said he "got wailed-on hard". He complained that his shoulder hurt but we waited it out. The next morning he couldn't put weigh on his arm to sit up, so I called the pediatrician. After exams and x-rays, we were told that he had a broken collar bone. It was pretty clear from the x-rays that I saw. (Update: So for 5 weeks he became a left-hander. I am amazed how well he handled things. He was determined to do it all on his own and not be a bother to us. His teacher was also impressed at how well he adjusted. He never complained. Derek sure can do hard things.)