A Half, Full Day

One of the things I try to do with the girls is to have them look at the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. Stef has started playing a guitar, basically strumming chords herself to see if she likes it. This morning she told me she started writing a song, but it only has two chords in it. I told her that was twice as many chords as a John Lee Hooker song, and he was one of the greatest blues artists of all time. I think she thinks I'm making these things up...but so far I haven't had to do so.

Later on this morning, Stef told me she'd rather play offense on her soccer team, but she didn't win the tryout for offense so instead she's a midfielder. I told her that Franz Beckenbauer was one of the most famous soccer players of all time, and he was a midfielder. In fact, midfielders are considered the field general of the entire soccer team.

But the last glass is half-full moment of the day came not from me, but from Jessica. She had her first two games of the year in travel soccer. In the first game, her team looked a little overwhelmed. The team is all new, they've only practiced once, and the field is 4 times bigger than the field they played on last year. The other team had what looked like future World Cup stars, kept the ball on offense the entire time, and scored 5 goals while taking about 84 shots. Jess barely touched the ball at all.

During the game, I thought maybe it was a mistake to sign her up for travel soccer. She went from scoring 8-10 goals a game to trying without success to chase Pele Patty sprinting down the field with the ball on a string.

After the game, when I asked her what she thought, she said "It was awesome. I love soccer!" And in the second game, the team played much better, Jesse had a few shots on goal, and she scored right before the end of the game.

The day was only half over, but it was definitely half-full.