#58

*It's not the best point of view of the play, but hopefully you can see which one is him. #58 He's REALLY good at breaking through the offensive line and messing the plays up for the other team. He almost made it to the handoff to intercept, but was able to quickly pull the boy down with the help of his teammates.

I was so excited for this game. Awake a lot in the night thinking about it and hoping I wasn't going to be too tired to get up with the alarm clock and oversleep and miss the game. Dylan's impeccable timing (5 mins before alarm went off) prevented that. I wanted to get as much footage as possible but my eyes were not in sync with the camera and it floated up A LOT! Although here's a good play I DID catch. It goes kind of fast so you may have to watch it over again to find him. *I'm thinking a tripod in the future would be a GREAT investment.

I always thought it was annoying when my mom would cheer for my brothers at their soccer games. She was always SO loud. It was embarrassing to the young girl I used to be. But the table has turned and I'm now that obnoxious screaming mother cheering for her boy! I'm also the mother with urges to get up in coach's face insisting my boy be put in immediately! But, No worries, I have more self control than that, but that urge is p r e t t y powerful! There's still a full season ahead....we'll see how I behave.

When we got there, the opposing team was already warming up in a rather military-like formation. Quite the intimidation tactic. And I was conviced that we weren't playing them. They were much too big for our little team. (There were 3 different games going on at once so I found another team that sized up more equally. Then they left to a different field and the military "giants" were still at the other end of OUR field. I prayed that we wouldn't loose THAT bad but expected a loss nonetheless. We had good players but have struggled to get the plays down.

I walked over to Ash and some other boys and gave them some "words of encouragment" (or maybe it was permission to hit REALLY hard, act like animals....something like that, I don't remember.) And wished them good luck.

The coaches have pretty much decided to put Ash on the defensive line. Although he does play a little on the offensive. So when it was their time to send the defense out, Ash didn't start and I was sad about that. He was SO excited to play today. He was right on the white line waiting for coach to put him in. And he waited. And waited. And mom was getting mad. And he waited some more. He would frequently ask the coach when his turn will come and continually was told to wait. At this point, I'm thinking of ways to "nicely" request my son be put in, which turned to more aggressive requests the longer he waited. (Of course it was all in my mind. Nothing vocal)! FINALLY I hear "Ashton" and I grab the camera. He ran one play and they pulled him out. I was like, WHAT!? ARE YOU SERIOUS! He just got out there!!! Jared showed up just then and I had some frustrating words to share with him. During half time when coach was talking to the team I suggested to Jared to "just stand over there". Maybe if the coaches saw that his dad was there, they'd let him play more for that reason, since mom's presence wasn't doing any good.

Luckily we had some fabulous friends come to support Ashton and Ray educated me a little on what the coach was dealing with: More players than positions-someones going to sit out. Making parents AND players happy by making sure each kid played. AND win the game. SO I simmered down. Sat down. And took a deep breath. And trusted the coaches know what they're doing.

The outcome: Ash played A LOT in the second half. He was on fire! And it was awesome. I do know that he has a lot to work on and now that he's had a small taste of what this season will be like, he can focus on what needs working on. And me too. The mom. I have to remember that it's his first year playing. And there are boys out there with this being their second. Seniority does have a hand in there and that sucks for Ash. But such is life. And that's how we grow. Fight to the top, right?

We ended up winning 14-0. But to give that other team credit, they came so close, so many times. Our little guys were just faster. One play, their boy was running and 'we' caught up to him and tackled him 2 yards from the goal line. Pretty exciting.

I'll probably post a lot on his games, so bare with me for the duration of this season. I hear they play rain or shine, snow or sleet. So I'll have lots to talk about.