Soccer With My Daughter, Vol 1

I try my best to keep my family life out of this blog. If you are reading any of my content, I know that you really only want to think about sports - not how amazing I think my daughter is. Well, this is my first venture into talking about my daughter, because, well, it ties into sports perfectly.

Tomorrow I start Daddy & Me soccer with my 2-year old. It is a day I have been excited about for some time and finally it is here.

A year ago The Wife convinced me that I should create a new blog discussing my experience with The Incident as she is introduced to the world of sports. She felt that other fathers might be able to relate and might be interested in reading what I had to say. I gave it some thought and given the success of this blog, I decided to put it on hold. However, since that day I have been writing about all the little moments - the day she first recognized my Mets hat, the day she wanted to go to the Sounders game with us, the day she first kicked a ball - in a journal that maybe one day she will want to read. At the very least it can be something I share with her. At the most, it might be something others care to read.

This is the premise of this entry and any future entries about this: I love my daughter. I love sports. I hope to write about their intersection.

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I am really excited about tomorrow. I have loved the sport of soccer since I was 5 year old and I hope that someday The Incident will come to appreciate it as much as I do. I know that is probably not a healthy hope, so allow me to alter it slightly: at the very least I hope that she gets satisfaction and enjoyment out of playing the game at some time in her life.

I assume that when she is 5 years old, running around on a grass field and aiming to kick a soccer ball will be fun. What I don't know is how long that will last for her. Will she want to give up the sport at age 8? Will she want to give it up when she enters high school and has other priorities? Will she want to play college soccer? Hell, will she even want to play it age 30?

I don't have those answers, but I hope that she has fun. I have no expectations for tomorrow. Check that, I do have some expectations - I expect her to be on the field with me and 5 other groups from our parenting group. I expect her to kick the ball once and then want to pick dandelions or play on the set of swings in the distance. I think those are the only realistic expectations to have - I mean, she's 2.

If I go into it thinking that she is going to be the best player (or at least the most excited) then I am headed for a letdown. As much as I wish for her to have more talent than her old man, there is not a chance in hell that we will see it tomorrow. No, tomorrow is more about being a dad and having fun outside then it is being a dad teaching the game of soccer to his daughter. Tomorrow is not about showing off my skill and feeling tough because I am better and more knowledgeable than the other dads (already that is in question if my boy Irish Mike shows up), but rather an opportunity to be outside with my daughter and a group of people that I have grown close to.

I am very excited.