Soccer War Wounds

It's that time of year again...soccer season...

The time when we get to pray we don't yell things like "push her down next time she shoves you" cheer loudly for our sweet girls!

A time when we leave our younger children in the car and steal all the blankets to make sure we don't lose feeling in our fingers due to the cold bundle up and sip hot cocoa on the side lines and smile sweet smiles for the joy of sunshine.

A time when use our zoom lens to spy on the opposing team or try to out-ref the ref with calls take spectacular action shots of all the girls playing!

Having never grown up with soccer, I'm a novice at the sport...I wouldn't even call my knowledge "novice"...I would say it's more like "clue-less"...I really don't understand it all, except that you can't box out, you can't use your hands, and people are wearing very sharp shoes...

Peanut obtained some battle scars this past weekend...it was her turn as keeper...NOT a position that many mothers enjoy...and last Saturday was the very reason I abhore it still...As I mentioned in another post, Peanut can be spunky...and when she puts her mind to it, there is no stopping her.  The ball was coming to her, she literally JUMPED on it with her whole body to stop it...apparantly the other little player didn't seem to think that that was good enough to stop HER goal, so she proceeded to continue kicking the ball while it was securely in the arms of my daughter...what she failed to realize (and what I was ABOUT to come out to the field and show her if she didn't stop!!!) was that she wasn't actually kicking the ball any longer...remember, it was SECURELY in Peanut's arms...therefore she was "cleating" my daughter's arm...

Once Peanut found her feet, she managed to get up and throw the ball back into play...no score was made on her by golly...but, this is what she got for it...

Under the bandaid is the bleeding part...it's also the long cut from where one cleat ripped her skin and it is now a nice shade of blue/purple...the other red spots are the other spike marks...

nice huh?

It's a good thing her Daddy is one of the coaches...maybe that's partly WHY he chooses to coach...he's definitely the level-headed one in this family...cuz, really, I was on the edge of mylittle lawn chair with my 7 lb camera in my hand which I was more than willing to haul at someone if they didn't leave my baby alone...he handles things much more calmly...

She made it off the field until she got it taken care of and then she ran through the tunnel with everyone else and participated in the MAIN part of soccer anyway...the snacks:)

Little Munchkin told me the other day that she can't wait until she gets to play soccer...I asked her why...she said, "Because Mommy, then I get to hear you cheering for me!"...

I must be doing something right:)