our future Mia Hamm

According to Dale, soccer is not just the best sport, it is the only sport. So when he learned, two-and-a-half years ago, that the Albuquerque International Indoor Soccer Arena offers a "Lil Kickers" program for kids eighteen months to nine years, I had to convince him to wait a couple of months before signing our then-unborn child up for toddler soccer lessons.

Adelaida was eligible to start soccer lessons in July, but with our traveling, Adelaida in school full-time over the summer, and various other excuses, we didn't get around to signing her up until last week. (Yes, I know those first four months of soccer lessons are crucial to future soccer stardom, but I am convinced Adelaida can overcome her late start and make a name for herself one day!)

Last Saturday was Adelaida's first soccer practice. We arrived early to register Adelaida for the session and Dale and Adelaida went out on the field (it is a parent-child class) while I tried to pay. I really, really tried hard to pay, but didn't exactly succeed. You see, the Lil Kickers' philosophy is that the first class for any child should be a free try-it-out-and-see-if-you-like-it class; only after a child has been through one class will they sign that child up for the rest of the season. Now, Adelaida was predisposed to love (and excel at) soccer both through her genetic makeup (Dale is a great soccer player) and by her environment (she sees Dale play soccer often and loves balls). I asked if the Lil Kickers staff would make an exception this one time and let me pay for the rest of the season before Adelaida's first class; they insisted that she try it out first, but told me I could pay for the rest of the season right after this first lesson.

Back on the field, Adelaida and Dale were enjoying the free play while waiting for the session to start. She was running, laughing, chasing the ball, even kicking the ball sometimes -- I was so proud!




I had decided earlier that the best way for Adelaida to learn that soccer is a foot-ball-contact sport (rather than a pick-up-the-ball-with-your-hands sport) is to teach her that from the very beginning, so when she squatted down to pick up the ball with both hands, I tried to get Dale's attention and have him take the ball out of her hands. Fortunately, he didn't hear me.

All this had happened between the time the previous lesson ended and Adelaida's session began. Then the lesson began ... and Adelaida turned into a "Daddy hold me!" little girl. She loved kicking the ball around with her daddy, but the organization of the formal lesson didn't go over very well. Here are some of the pictures I took of the lesson:

The kids are getting ready to play "green light red light" but Adelaida screamed every time Dale put her down, so she was chauffeured through the game while all the other kids ran. (Adelaida is on the far right, in Dale's arms.)


Here the coach was describing how to build a cone-ball man. I don't think Adelaida could be any further back in Dale's lap! Her body language says it all.


All the other kids (and parents) are under the parachute; Adelaida preferred to stay a few steps back and watch the game with distrust.


In her first soccer lesson, Adelaida participated in exactly one activity: putting the cones away after building cone-ball men. She refused to run for "red light green light," she refused to step on the bubbles, she refused to practice headers with the squishy ball, she refused to kick the ball from cone-ball man, and she certainly refused to have anything to do with the parachute. She spent about half of the lesson in Dale's arms and ran to the sideline (me) five times with her arms up, begging me to pick her up.

When it was over, I walked up to Dale and abjectly asked if we should sign up for the rest of the season or leave quickly and pretend we had never been there.

We decided to sign her up and hoped that the next week would be better.

Today was her second lesson, and there were so many (small) victories! We again arrived long enough before her lesson started that Dale and Adelaida could run around on the field before the (scary) organized lesson began. The first thing Adelaida did on the field was run to a ball and pick it up excitedly -- and I didn't care that she was using her hands! Victory for Adelaida and victory for me! :)

The organized lesson started and the first activity was "red light green light." In this activity, all the kids and parents line up on the far side of the field, the coach says "green light" and they all run to the other side, stopping whenever he says "red light." You may recall that, last week, Adelaida did "red light green light" in Dale's arms because she screamed every time he put her down. Today, she did not scream when he put her down -- but she didn't run either. So Dale played "red light green light" while Adelaida stood by herself on the far side of the field, watching the commotion and not crying. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless! (That's Adelaida, in the far corner of the field all by herself.)

That's Adelaida, waiting for everyone to run back to her during "red light green light."


The next activity was bubbles -- the coach blows bubbles and the kids are supposed to stomp on the bubbles on the ground. Adelaida didn't exactly stomp on any bubbles, but she did eventually stomp her feet near the bubbles. Another small victory.

The squishy balls came out next. I'm not sure what the kids were supposed to do with the squishy balls, but Adelaida loved playing with it! She would walk up to the ball, throw herself on it, and "surf" on the ball until she rolled off it, then do it all again. She was having so much fun with this that she didn't even care when Dale walked away from her to talk to another parent. A huge victory!

Of course, one activity that Adelaida has always been good at is putting things away. When it was time to put the squishy balls away, she quickly put away not only her ball, but also another ball that seemed to be unclaimed by any other children.


Finally, the coach brought out the parachute. This was Adelaida's least favorite part of the lesson last week. The parachute play takes two forms: first, all the kids sit in the parachute while the parents spin it, taking the kids for a ride; then, they billow the parachute up and everyone gets under the parachute. This week, when the parachute was on the ground and other kids were running onto the parachute and sitting down, Adelaida followed them without even being prompted. She sat down and thoroughly enjoyed being spun in the parachute -- when the parachute stopped, she immediately signed "more." A great victory!

Adelaida still wasn't excited about getting under the parachute. She stood by it for a while while the other kids and parents got under the parachute, then decided she had had enough and ran to the sidelines, where she had spotted me. I didn't pick her up and she seemed content to stay on the field, and eventually she followed Dale back to the other kids for the end of the lesson. Another small victory.

My dreams of a toddler who would walk on the field and immediately dribble the ball, with her feet, around other kids and take a beautiful shot right on the goal may have been a little far-fetched. But Adelaida certainly seemed to have fun today and is developing her gross motor skills and bonding with her daddy -- all of which are great benefits and more important than having innate soccer skills. Dale noted that she participated in more activities today than she didn't participate in, which is a great improvement over last week. So, we're going to keep her in the lessons through December, and if it continues to go well, we'll be signing her up for the winter session too!

Oh, and there is one benefit to Adelaida not being a soccer prodigy: she won't have to quit school at 15 to join the U.S. Women's National Team and travel all over the world playing World Cup qualifying matches. No, she will almost certainly be able to stay in school and play soccer for fun -- as a great way to get exercise and relieve stress, and without worrying about whether her corner kicks are perfectly placed or having soccer forced on her as a profession rather than a relaxing, fun activity. In fact, I am rather relieved to learn that my daughter is not a twenty-three-month-old soccer star!

Nap time

For six months, Adelaida has been sleeping in a toddler bed. When we first let her sleep in the toddler bed, we could stand at her door and listen to her crawl out of the bed and start to play during nap time. When we heard that, we immediately opened the door and put her back in bed -- she quickly realized that Momma and Daddy know everything and that she was expected to remain in her bed during nap time. To further discourage her from leaving the bed, we placed two plastic storage bins in front of her bed, across the only opening in the railings. So, although is was technically a toddler bed, she couldn't/didn't get out of it and wasn't able to get into the bed herself.

This worked very well for five months; then about a month ago, she started crawling out of the bed when she was done with her naps or when she woke up in the morning. Because the plastic bins were still in front of the opening of her bed, she crawled over the railing to get out -- and was not able to get back in bed once she was out. Eventually she started crawling out of bed before taking her nap, and we spent several nap times going into Adelaida's room every ten minutes to put her back in bed, knowing that she would be getting out of bed again soon. Eventually, we decided to remove the plastic bins so that, if she did get out of bed, she would at least be able to get back into bed by herself.

The bins were removed about a week ago, and nap times have been very interesting since: we put Adelaida in her bed at nap time, she lays down in the bed and talks for a few minutes, eventually gets out of bed to play, and later (sometimes much later) crawls back in bed for her nap. This is probably the best outcome we could possibly have had -- she plays in her room quietly and happily after we put her down for her nap and knows that she should crawl back in her bed for a nap when she is tired.

Dale put Adelaida to sleep today and listened to her babble and talk and play in her room for a while, then heard her saying "night-night" to different people and things, then silence. He peeked in her room to see if she was in bed or had conked out on the floor, and saw a complete mess in her room:


Adelaida had pulled out every hat, every coat, every stuffed animal, and even an empty shoebox and strewn them across the floor of her room! She had also managed to remove one shoe and one sock, but had apparently had sense enough to climb into her bed to sleep.

Doesn't she look exhausted? Removing every article below two feet high in her room must have been hard work!

Visiting Denver: playing at the park

Our hotel in Denver was just a short walk to a great community center and park, so we took Adelaida there several times. It was nice to get out of the hotel room and to let Adelaida play on the park equipment. She enjoyed the stairs and slides -- until she saw the swings! Adelaida loves to swing, both in a baby swing (so she can swing really high) and in a big-kid swing (she is very good at holding on to the chains and rarely falls off).

Here are some of the pictures we took at the park:

Adelaida preparing to go down the slide


On the big-kid swing


Adelaida thought it was so funny when her Mamaw and her Momma got on the swings with her


Adelaida's favorite place to go on the playset was the top of the climbing wall. She could reach that platform by stairs and liked to walk up the stairs to the top of the climbing wall and look out. It was an awfully long way down, so Dale followed her up there a few times to make sure she didn't fall.


Dale showed off his monkey bar prowess as Adelaida watched


The park was beautiful, so we decided to take some family photos while we were there.

Me, Adelaida, and Dale


Charlotte with her four grandchildren: Elizabeth, Benjamin, Sarah, and Adelaida


Richard and Laura with Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Sarah

Visiting Denver: "Hi Nina!"

While in Denver last month, we took all the kids to the Denver Zoo one morning. The weather was just chilly enough that the zoo wasn't very crowded, but warm enough that we were comfortable there. Adelaida really enjoyed the animals!

The very first animal exhibit we saw was the hyena exhibit. Keep in mind that Adelaida had just started putting two words together and has never seen a hyena before (as far as I know). Adelaida saw the hyenas, shouted "puppy!" and I told her "those are hyenas. They look like puppies but they are hyenas. Can you say hyena?" She watched the hyena for a minute, then stretched her arm out, waved her hand, and said "Hi ... Nina!" Isn't it funny how kids hear something new and mold it to fit their experiences? Adelaida had never heard the word hyena before, but she knew that I often asked her to say hi to an animal so thought I was asking her to say hi to the puppy named Nina!

Elizabeth, Sarah, and Adelaida are pretty good about staying with us, but we did have one incident where a child ran off full-speed before any of us could stop her. We were walking from one exhibit to another when we came into view of a large grassy area that was not part of any exhibit. The grassy area was filled with geese -- probably forty or fifty geese -- and Sarah ran ahead of us to see them. On the sidewalk in front of the geese was a man with a stroller and two young children. He was squatting down to point out the geese to his kids and Sarah ran right up to him, put her hand on his leg, and started pointing with him! He took it really well and started talking to Sarah, asking her if she had ever seen geese before and listening to her excited babbling. Eventually we caught up to her, and eventually she realized that the man she had been talking with was a stranger -- the whole scene was just so funny!

The weather forecast indicated a very slight chance of rain, so Adelaida sported her rain slicker for the zoo excursion! We didn't get any rain, but the rain slicker is just too cute to pass up whenever we have an opportunity for her to wear it.


Elizabeth is two years older than Adelaida and Sarah is six months older than Adelaida, and Adelaida loves to do what older and bigger kids are doing. So when Elizabeth and Sarah stood at the glass to watch the birds, Adelaida went right up there and stood next to them -- despite the fact that she was too short to actually see anything!

Near the end of the visit, Adelaida was getting tired and Sarah was getting bored with the animals, so they worked out a nice arrangement that benefited everyone: Sarah pushed Adelaida in the stroller! Sarah did a pretty good job of steering: she ran Adelaida into stationary objects only a few times.


We ended the trip to the zoo with a short train ride. Adelaida was pretty tired by this time and wanted to be held. She wasn't very excited about leaving her stroller, but was consoled by the opportunity to sit on my lap.


It was a great trip, full of fun memories and lots of animals!