A wise man once said, "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball."

Unless I gave birth to you, this statement generally rings true.

Welcome to The Diecinueve: Modest Tales of the Athletically Disinterested Daughter.

04 January 2011

If you're wondering what happened to the soccer season...

It was, oddly, successful. Little J's team lost only one game in one of the greatest comeback seasons of all time. Coach Daddy worked those little girls half to death, but they made one heckuva team (once we were allowed to bring in a third grader as a ringer). Jenna's aptitude for soccer improved slightly, as did her stamina.

Her attitude, however, remained somewhat unimpressed by soccer as a whole. After the first two practices, Jenna retired. She decided that soccer was not for her, and while Coach Daddy was disappointed, he nonetheless didn't so much mind the distractions leaving his practices. Jenna has the propensity to...well...to be a really terrible influence on the other kidlets. I mean this in the best of all possible ways.

Kids are like dominoes, you see. When one is unable to pay attention, so go the others. The center cannot hold.

The three subsequent practices in which Jenna did not participate, were quite successful and valuable to the team as a whole; however, game day approached and Coach Daddy found himself a player short. In an attempt to appeal to Jenna's altruistic side, I asked her if, as a favor, she could, perhaps, dress out and sit on the bench and go into the game in the event that some of her friends got tired and needed a break. As this type of "building up" usually works well with Jenna, she complied (as a side note, these things get a tad Michael Corleone sometimes with her - "one day I may call on you for a favor...").

In a performance that I can only describe as Farvesque, my child - my completely non-motor skilled child - put on a show the likes of which almost killed Coach Daddy dead on the field. Out of nowhere, Jenna channeled Brandy Chastain or some other fabulous soccer player and blocked two goals from the opposition. She also had the assist on our team's only goal of the day.

Seriously folks, it was the wildest thing I had ever witnessed. If someone had told me that morning that Jenna would do that, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed and told that someone that I had never, ever been acquainted with that level of mistaken before. And I would have eaten a whole elephant full of crow.

She was that good. For that very brief day in early Autumn, my Jenna was...she was...well, my Jenna was an athlete.

And it felt good.

It felt new and strange and surprising, but it felt good.

And though the athleticism was brief, Coach Daddy and I both saw it. It has renewed our hope for the upcoming basketball season.

The rest of the soccer season was as you might expect. Disciplinarily speaking, first and second grade girls are just crazy. They have a brief window in which you can reach them, but once your time limit is up you'd better be prepared to watch twelve little girls playing in the mud, running as if they were horses, and picking flowers instead of running any manner of drill. Coach Daddy's stress levels were somewhat erratic for much of the Autumn. They have since evened out, and Jenna has bequeathed her cleats to her little sister. She's gone into retirement again, folks...

We've heard that story before though...

In the meantime, basketball season is starting up soon and I cannot wait to journal the season's high points and low points with you, right here, at The Diecinueve.

Until then, may you keep all your balls in the air unless they belong on the ground.

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