Officially official.

Well, it's official.  I am officially a 'Soccer Mom'.  Funny that it took 5 kids for that to officially occur, but # 5 is a huge fan of playing soccer, so there you go.

She just completed her first winter session of soccer.  It was pretty easy - held at an indoor sports complex, with teams of other kids all right around her age.  Some of the coaches were just fantastic.

I had already signed her up for a spring soccer league through the Y before we started this league.  Today I called and cancelled the Y league, and signed up for the next session through the soccer club she was with this last time.  The Y leagues are all parent-coached, and depending on who you get, they're not all that serious.  The soccer club we're in DOES focus on just being recreational at this age, but they ARE serious about the sport, and the coaches, like I said before, are just awesome.  It will be a challenge to fit in a practice night, game day, and swimming lessons with everything else we've got going on, but we are so happy to have a kid actively engaged in team sports.

It is funny watching the kids in this league play.  At this age, the kids don't really get that they're supposed to play certain positions.  And really, there aren't enough kids on the team to do it anyway.  The maximum # of kids on any of the teams was about 5, so it's really a big 'soccer mob' anyway.

The cool thing, though, was watching how C problem-solved.  For the first game, she just stayed in the middle of the mob with everybody else, trying to get the ball.  By the last game of the 4-game mini-session, she had figured out that if she held back a little rather than jumping into the middle of the fray, she had a better chance of getting the ball when it popped out of the mob, and she could then grab it and score a goal.
Despite having Soccer right after swimming lessons, she kept up running back and forth on the field (and with 4 and 5-year-olds, there is A LOT of back and forth).  She even came down with the flu right after one of the games, and despite that she was still the most active player on the team.

She's competitive (not in a bad way), strategic, and motivated, and it is SO AWESOME to see that in our child.

Her favorite thing about this last game though?  Her teammate gave her a hug after C scored a goal.  LOL!  She's SO very sweet.

It's scary thinking that this fall she goes off to Kindergarten.  My baby - the last kiddo I'll ever have - is already growing up.  Where I have spent so much of the last 10 years just being EXHAUSTED by the antics of my kids, with C, I just want her to try WHATEVER she wants to do.  Right now she wants soccer, is loving swimming, and also asked if she could do dance lessons again. We're too late on dance until Fall, and I really think 2 things at a time is enough, but I see why people end up over-committing their kids.  It's so fun when they are ENTHUSIASTIC about doing things.  I hope to never be one of those parents who forces their kids to do sports they don't want in hopes that someday they'll be Olympians - but for now, I'm thrilled just to have a kid who actually enjoys being athletic!