The Soccer Series - Part III

The Most Important Element

I hope some of you mom's will understand and appreciate this post. . .

For me the most important element of getting my children to play soccer was not teaching them to play well with others, my kids did that already. It was not to get them up off the couch and outdoors, my kids used to beg me to let them sleep outdoors. It was not to teach them coordination, my kids used to roller blade around the dining room table and living room furniture with ease. It certainly was not about the plastic soccer trophy, my son used his for target practice. And it was not to teach them how to work together as a team, my kids frequently teamed up together to go after me! No, for me it was all about that coveted soccer photo! You know the ones, with your child standing next to the soccer ball, with dirty shin guards on (to make it look like they played hard) and the green soccer field behind them. That was the reason I signed my kids up to play soccer. I wanted wallet size pictures of my children with a soccer ball, in uniform, to show my family and friends. Little did I know that my middle daughter would refuse to smile for her picture because she was mad at me. She was 6 and she told me, "You made my hair look bad. I'm mad." I begged, I pleaded, I bribed, I yelled and I even explained, "Even if someone paid me a million dollars to make your hair look bad, I would have to tell 'I'm sorry, I can't take your money because I can't make my daughter's hair look bad, even for a million dollars'." Nothing worked. So at the soccer field, all the soccer mom's were like, "Come on honey, say 'ca-ching', smile." I had had it at this point and I yelled at the photographer, "It's my $8.95 and if that child does not want to smile, so be it - take the dang picture!" And so she did. . .




. . . my coveted photo . . . my gem . . .