How On Earth Did I End Up Here?

Makoto has started soccer. I don't know how this happened, except I do have a slight suspicion that him being born from a soccer loving mother might have had something to do with it.

Either way however, my eldest went to a free-interest event held on Monday by a licensed soccer coach. Now, I admit that my own attempts at soccer were more than half-hearted. Back in the day I spent one, and just one, season playing youth soccer. To say I didn't enjoy it would be an understatement. I didn't like the drills, I didn't like the running (I still don't like running), and I didn't enjoy the game at all. Of course, part of it might have been due to our team, the Jedi (Which for some reason I thought had something to do with jets) having won, if memory serves, one game and tying two, but after that one season I very happily put away my soccer ball and shin guards and put on a baseball cap for t-ball and never looked back.

But I digress.

This wasn't a try out, it was an interest session as I said. Japanese sports don't exactly run in seasons, so Makoto will continue to swim even in winter and his soccer team will play soccer every week, just moving into the local gym once the snow flies. Makoto had been encouraged to go to the session by both his friends from pre-school and his mother so I had no real say in it. That said, he obviously enjoyed himself and the coach seemed to be very good with little kids, getting them to drill by making it fun. They started off with place kicks into the goal and then moved into tossing the soccer ball and then kicking it in between sitting, laying, and standing on it with their heads.

And for a bunch of little boys, this of course was just fun.

During the breaks, my son would come streaking back to Beloved and I covered in sweat and grinning to claim some cold tea and making sure that we were still watching him. After the drills, the coach moved into playing, which I admit he did brilliantly, starting off the 'teams' (Greens and blues) first two on two, then three on three, and finally the whole teams to get the idea down about getting the ball and kicking it into the goal.

He's WAAAAAAAAAY back there

That's when we noticed something a bit odd about Makoto. While just about all the boys would be in a giant clump trying to kick (or pick up, we're talking 4 to 6-year-olds here and the no hands rules are a bit hard to enforce), Makoto would constantly be running in long curves trying to catch up with them. Now, yes, some of the boys were a year or two older than he is, and thus bigger so it makes sense that they might be faster, but Makoto is rather fast himself. The only thing I can figure out is either, a. Makoto enjoys running far more than actually kicking the ball. B. Makoto hasn't quite worked out that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, or C. Makoto has absorbed the science documentaries I watch from time to time and is aware that space/time is actually curved. Either way, this was a very happy little boy who got to run and run and run, but not actually kick the ball.

But it didn't matter, at the end of the hour when the coach called time and had all the kids line up to say thank you to him and then to the parents, Makoto came running over to state that, yes, he REALLY wanted to play soccer as well as swim, so couldn't he do both, please?

 The tally, in case you're wondering is soccer on Wednesday, local swimming on Tuesdays, and swimming at a local sports center on Thursdays. Thus without meaning to, we have apparently developed into overachieving parents, the ones who put their kids into EVERYTHING.

And it's getting worse, Beloved wants Makoto in kendo, I have stated I want him to try Scouts when he gets old enough, and the both of us want him to develop his obvious musical talent/interest. How the heck did we end up here? Especially when both Beloved and I loudly proclaimed that we wouldn't do that to our sons?

And yes, I mean sons for as Makoto was busy practicing soccer and running, Hikaru spent the time trying to show that he could kick the ball too and complaining when Beloved and I wouldn't let him run into the soccer field to play soccer with his big brother and his friends.

So does not understand age limits

Mein Gott im himmel, we've created a pair of monsters!