Goal!!

Marcus started his first day of soccer today. It was something I really wanted to get him involved with if, for no other reason, it is what just about every Guatemalan boy in Guatemala does from a very young age. Through another mom friend, I found out about this soccer program for 3-4 year olds that teaches them basic skills of the game. We figured we would give it a try. I thought about taking my camera and then forgot it. Hopefully next week I will remember and have some better quality pictures than I was able to get from my phone.

Marcus has been wearing his shin guards pretty much nonstop since Tuesday evening in preparation. He even wore them to playgroup and story time at the library, because you just never know when an impromptu game of soccer might break out. There are about 8 kids in his class, a coach, and an assistant coach. Both of the men who coach are excellent with the kids. For an hour they had them dribbling the ball, learning to dribble and then stop the ball, and kick the ball off of the wall. They played a couple of relay and running games with them as well. The coaches were really great at encouraging the kids and giving lots of high fives. Marcus is pretty slow to warm up to new things so he did a lot more shuffling around than he did running. I so proud of him for getting out there and being so brave to give it a try.

(Marcus is in the orange shirt.)


During their first water break, Marcus came over for some hugs. He got tears in his eyes and said he didn't want to play soccer anymore. During the second water break, he just kept practicing his moves and didn't bother to stop for water. By the end, he was all smiles and telling me he wanted to play more soccer.

I wasn't sure how Will would be during the class. Will still has 2 more months to go before he will be old enough to try it out. In the end, Will showed absolutely no interest in playing soccer with the other kids and was quite content hanging out with me and playing with his cars.



For the last few minutes of their time, the kids played a little four on four scrimmage. Marcus just kind of shuffled along in the general direction of the ball. It was easy to tell the 3 year olds from the 4 year olds, since the 4 year olds were much more into it. By that time most of the 3 year olds weren't paying any attention to the soccer ball at all. I wasn't really paying attention either, just talking to some other moms. Then one of the other moms said, "Marcus just scored a goal!!" There was much cheering and rejoicing and yelling from me, mostly to encourage Marcus but partially to cover up for the fact that I missed seeing it. Oops. Bad mom. At the end of practice, Marcus was so proud of himself for scoring a goal and got lots of hugs from both me and Will. Go Marcus!!

I talked for a little bit with the main coach for his team after practice. As if his dark hair, dark skin, and accent weren't enough to convince me that he was of some sort of Spanish decent, he pronounced Marcus's name as if it were spelled Marcos. Every Hispanic person we have run into calls Marcus Marcos. I usually wouldn't do such a thing, but I asked the coach where he was from. He is from Argentina. Marcus hasn't reached the stage of noticing differences in race, but I'm really excited that there is potential for us to have found a positive Hispanic role model for our kids.