A few thoughts on soccer...

We wrapped up our first soccer season, complete with that classic team pizza party to celebrate. 

It definitely brought Julian and I back to our days as young soccer players, it's fun to revisit those old memories. 

A soccer team of 3-4 year old's was an interesting experience...

Most of the kids (Max included) did not fully understand or obey the "rules", the phrase "herding cats" comes to mind when I think about how some of the practices went down, and Max never scored or prevented a goal in a real game. 

There was so much good though. 

Families who were strangers on day 1 are now friends, Max improved his soccer skills dramatically over the course of the season, and most of all he had so much fun running around on that field. 

Julian and I had a bit of a running joke throughout the season, based off of a principle we picked up from Malcom Gladwell's "Outliers", the "10,000 hours" principle. Gladwell estimates that it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice in order to become somewhat of an expert at something.  He posits that early exposure and dedicated practice time leads to mastery of a subject, rather than just natural ability.  

Throughout the soccer season we would joke with each other about "Max's hours"... perhaps hour 11 of Max's soccer career was largely spent chatting with the girls on his team... much of hour 18 was spent in time out for bumping into team mates...during hour 22 he scored his first goal in a parent vs. kids scrimmage.

No, we did not actually track the hours, but it was fun to watch how he grew over the season, not every hour or minute was particularly productive, but we figure it all counts towards his 10,000 hours if soccer is an activity he continues to pursue and enjoy. 

We had a great time cheering from the sidelines, sometimes we celebrated goals scored and other times cartwheels and dance moves. 

So fun.

P.S. Eli wants to play too.