Soccer Girl

It was Nora's first day of soccer today. It was an interesting day for me. She was perfect. Absolutely everything that you would want out of a first day of soccer. The coach was someone we casually knew. (Actually very casually, as in met a couple of times and they seemed really nice.) Their daughter is in Nora's grade. Nora was observant and listened. She was active and brave. Attentive... loved it: Perfect. And I was completely proud of her. We actually went out for Nora's guilty pleasure, McDonald's, afterward because I was so proud. (This is a big give on my part).  But I couldn't help but sit there, and in the middle of my pleasure, feel a little pang of sorrow. Henry's group sports attempts were the opposite. Crash and burn... wreckage everywhere. He didn't come running back to us crying, as others had done, but, in some ways, that may have been easier. He tried, god bless him, to play the game. He just didn't have even close to the attention span needed for such a thing. He was off plucking grass and thinking about superheroes.

Now, this was Nora's day, and lets not take away from that. And exactly that was what I kept telling myself. This too: "Don't compare these two... that is setting yourself up for bad things in the future." He is sitting right next to me right now, desperately trying to pry me away from typing so he can tell me about his Yu-gi-Oh! cards. :)

Nora was really proud, and rightly so. They played a variety of training games... kick the ball down field... dive on the ball on command.... sit and listen. Perfect. She is truly an amazing girl. She has a memory that literally scares me sometimes. No walking around the house in boxers, because I am absolutely sure that she will remember it when she is 25.

danger will robinson....

db