Sports Camp, Week 1, Soccer

One day, a few months ago, out of the blue, Harper asked if he could go back to sports camp. I told him I'd see when one started but then forgot about it. He asked again recently and when I checked online for a start date I found that one was beginning in July. The starting age for this particular camp is 3 so I went ahead and signed Dakota up as well. I was happy to see that she wasn't the only girl in the class. There are seven kids and four of them are girls AND one of the other little girls is only about 2 weeks older than her! 

It didn't go well. 

I knew Dakota would have a hard time with it because she has a hard time with new people/activities/experiences in general, but I figured she'd be okay since I'd be in the same room...but I was wrong. She literally held onto my leg the entire time. There was one, very brief moment where she chased her soccer ball and wasn't attached to me, but it only happened once and that was pretty much the only thing she did for that entire hour. I was on the court with her the entire time and she still wouldn't participate. 

Good thing I took a picture of her one moment of participation. 

As soon as she realized that she wasn't attached to my leg, she turned and gave me this face and pretty much refused to do anything else.

It wasn't particularly fun. 

The coaches spent the majority of the hour teaching the kids how to dribble. Harper was very careful when he dribbled and really concentrated on keeping the ball between his feet. He was doing a great job, but the ball was just barely inching its way across the court when I saw him becoming frustrated. One of the coaches went over to encourage him, but it was too late, he was already upset. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he hated dribbling...so, we (Harper, Dakota and I) found a quiet little corner to talk. I reassured him that he was doing great and he cried a little and then I told him he'd have to quit crying if he wanted to join in the games they were about to start. He immediately stopped crying and kept peeking over my shoulder to see what they were about to do. We made a run to the bathroom and when we got back on the court, he was happy again. I think he was just upset because Dakota was being difficult, but who knows. He did great for the remainder of lesson and was eager to get his stamp at the end.

Dakota wanted to get her stamp too, but she wouldn't go out there alone. Good thing Landon was willing to go with her because by that point I was done.