A Squared: "I Kick!"...My Little Kickaroo...

...We started soccer classes at Vetta. Those of you that have recently met me probably don't know this, but in the day, soccer was my life! I played it from kindergarten all the way until I tore my ACL my senior year, even then I still played a couple games with it torn. When I moved to St. Louis, I knew it was the Mecca of Soccer in the Midwest. I couldn't wait for our hypothetical kid to start playing soccer.

For those of you that know my husband, you know he is NOT a sports fan, especially not soccer. Remember he bought me Ambush tickets for Christmas but didn't go to the game? Anyways, I was pretty excited to find out that Vetta offers classes starting at 18 months! For her birthday, my grandma paid for this first session of Kickaroos. It's a 10-week class that meets for 45 minutes/week.

Yes, I wanted her to do soccer because of my love for it, but I also feel like all the classes for toddlers are geared toward swimming, tumbling, and music. No problem with that, but I saw this as an opportunity to work on other gross motor skills that we don't do in gymnastics or swimming.

So far we've had two classes and I'd say she likes about 60% of the class and the other 40% she wants nothing to do with. I'm not sure if it's new, it's dinner/bedtime, or she just plain doesn't like it. When we get there, it's kind of free play until everyone shows up. She loves when I chase her around and she dribbles the ball. Then they stand on their dots and stretch which she loves. After stretching, we head to the big white wall. Sometimes she's a fan of this, sometimes she's not. Particularly, she hates Red Light/Green Light and never wants to participate in that game. However, when Coach Corey throws the hula hoops and she has to go get one and bring it back, she loves it! She could do this all day! Here she is loving on her Em-Dog before class last week.

Sometimes Coach Corey blows bubbles and they have to stomp on them. Again, AR is a huge fan of that! Last week, I remembered to bring a water bottle which turned out to be a problem because all my kid wanted to do was drink from it. It was like an actual water bottle, not a sippy cup, so I'm sure she thought she was a big girl.

She's thrown a few straight-up tantrums to which I let her be and go play. When she sees me playing with the other kids though, watch out, don't mess with her momma. She jumps up and runs over, sometimes participating, other times just clinging to my league. There's also inflatable bumpers that separate the big field into four smaller fields. AR thinks it's great to play on those and she actually flipped over it the first night onto the other field. She doesn't like when I redirect her away from those.

Still, it's a work in progress. She loves gymnastics, but it didn't happen over night. I constantly have to remind myself that we need to keep trying and not give up. I'm not pushing it on her, she does love to dribble even at home and she loves even more when I chase after her or vice versa. Oh and did I mention she's the youngest in the class? The class is technically for two year olds but her birthday was right in the middle of the class so we went older rather than younger. And there's these tiny black balls that's part of the field and gets on her hands which she hates (all the kids do).

Anyways, that's where we are two weeks into our Kickaroo class. She may not love it but she definitely enjoys herself. She comes home and tells Matt, "I KICK!" She's so proud of herself. To be honest, her favorite thing is helping Coach Corey pick up and collect all the supplies. Ahem...whose that remind you of, Sha?

Here's my big girl in her soccer jersey and socks. Don't mind our plaid Polo tennis shoes, its all we have that fit right now! Is she not freakin' adorable???