One of the things B and I have always agreed on with the kids is that we don’t want to overschedule them. Not that a once-weekly piano lesson is a huge amount of scheduling, but between that and daily practice and the usual homework, we weren’t sure whether sports would be a good addition without disrupting their time to just be KIDS. Because being kids is one of those things that I want them to really enjoy, not look back on it as being stressful trying to manage all the stuff they had to do.

But this year, we decided to start them playing soccer - Isak doesn’t have too much inclination toward athletics, and Anja needed somewhere to focus all of her bountiful energy. So soccer it was.

Practices are, in a word, interesting. Anja is usually either wiggling a tooth, playing with her hair, picking dandelions, or doing handstands/cartwheels/walking like a crab. Isak is a lot more interested and usually gets into it but hasn’t had the team experience that some of the other kids have. But they both seem to love it.

And this has put B and I both in new positions as parents: I am officially a soccer mom, and B is now “Coach B”. He is co-coaching with a friend of ours and the kids on the team are a lot of fun.

Last weekend was our first game, and unfortunately, the “Silver Scorpions” didn’t win…although the other team’s coach didn’t follow the guidelines set forth for the league, but what can you do? It was still fun, and it was so cute watching the kids run out there in their little uniforms, and we are going to have a fun rest of the season.

Of course, it’s not the same without pictures, is it? So here you all go, a few of our kiddos. The full set is on Flickr, but I set up a different account so that just team pictures would all be in one place for the rest of the team.