the soccer experiment

Soccer season is playing out quite differently this year.

Last year three kids were on the same team and Kevin and Riley coached them.  Talk about a family event.

And we normally just play soccer in the spring.

But this fall, all that changes.

It’s a bit of an experiment, actually.

(But isn’t all parenting, at some level?)

This season it’s a Mosely-only soccer show.

Mosely only has practice every Tuesday.

Mosely only has a game every Thursday.

Mosely only.

And all the little fans sit on the sidelines and cheer for Mosely only.

And of course by cheer I mean – Hawkeye throws his stuffed rabbit into the air so often that it lands in the playing field of the team beside us, Otto Fox perfects his forward roll in the grass until his clothes and his hair and his mouth are covered in dry grass, Piper Finn practices jumping feet first into Kevin’s lap and London keeps a running color commentary as to the fact that Mosely seems to be simply standing in the goal as opposed to playing the game.  (Which, in truth, she was, as the goalie position did not exactly see much action since the herd of children/athletes ran together in a giant heap at the field’s other end.)

The experiment is – we want Mosely to have something that is just hers.

We want her to have the rare privilege of being the solo star of something.

To not be in competition with her siblings – but to be center stage.

And she’s loving it.

I tried to take some photos at her first game.

But my camera battery is dead and has been for two weeks.  And I cannot recharge the battery as I cannot locate the battery charger.  Anywhere. And I have not yet resigned myself to purchasing a new battery charger in hopes that I will locate the misplaced one.  Which I wish I would find soon.  As in today. Because we have an awfully fun weekend filled with incredible photo opportunities ahead of us.

Anyway.

The experiment.

It’s been interesting to see how inconvenient it is to rearrange entire family schedules around one child.

And I can’t say we will do this again.

But for now,

for this season,

for seven-year-old Mosely Ella,

I think it’s worth it.