Beckett has been playing indoor soccer in Columbia for about four months now. After a few weeks playing with the 4 year-olds, his coach said he needed to move up to the 4 to 6 year-old class to get "bounced around a bit more." He's very aggressive and handsy, you see.
He played there for a couple of months but after his "game" (really just running through some drills and learning how to listen to a coach) Saturday morning the coach pulled us aside and said he should come at 2pm that afternoon to play with the competitive Under-6 kids. They keep score, have teams and generally know what they're doing. Plus, coach said, "he'll get his ass kicked a little more" and push him.
(Parental Disclaimer: In the interest of distancing ourselves from "tennis-dad" comparisons, we want to make it clear that Beckett is driving this. All he wants to do is eat, play soccer and wear one of his two or three soccer shirts. That's it. Oh, and sometimes watch soccer. We're just saying.)
We'll get some video taken and posted soon, but suffice it to say, Beckett held his own very well. Some of the kids are two years older and a foot taller, but Beckett still put in five of his team's fifteen goals. They won 15-13 (goalkeeping at this stage consists primarily of standing in one spot and not letting the ball roll through you).
Mom and Dad were unsure whether the right emotion was pride or horror at witnessing the end of their non-soccer lives for the next fourteen years. The team practices Monday night with games Saturday afternoon. Oh, and now he's signed up for a few weeks of swimming lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
