Alice had another game today. The other team was definitely better organized than the previous team. They had a couple of kids who seemed to actually know something about soccer. My hope that Alice, drawing on the experience of her two brothers, would dominate in the early years, has been crushed.
Alice only sort of understands the basics and does not have much of an attention span. During the earlier part of the game she spent most of the time sort of wandering around, or hanging out with the keeper, or just jumping. She picked up in the second half, chasing after the ball more often and having a couple of good runs, although she had a tendency to miss the ball on a kick and keep on moving. She had a couple of good clears near the goal as well.
[Alice is gaming in Dad’s office. He sneaks in behind her.]
Dad: Grrrrrrroooowwwwwwwl! I am an Alice eating monster outside the window!
Alice: No you’re not. You’re inside.
Dad: Oh, I am going to eat up the tasty Alice!
Alice: No you’re not.
[Dad tries to get status dominance back by touching Alice’s nose, which would put him one up. But he misses and tries to bluff instead.]
Dad: Hah, got your nose!
Alice: No you didn’t!
Dad: Ha! I will next time.
Alice: [disdainfully] There won’t be a next time.
Charles’ latest effort is the GTD Bastion an Orion class destroyer from the game Freespace (see the Bastion as it is sacrificed to close a worm hole).
Original
Charles built
We had Mom’s second cousin once removed and his family over for dinner yesterday. Being a cousin of Mom, he naturally had the same family pattern in roughly the same ages — three kids, boy boy girl. The four boys basically played computer most of the time, except when they were eating. Alice and the girl, Gracie, hit it off big time. They played a lot of dress up with old Alice costumes and dance outfits. They even went cruising with Zina for a chauffeur.
The evening ended with the boys being torn away from Guitar Hero.
Today’s game was against one of the girl’s team (not Mara’s). It was a dismal and foggy morning
Just before kick off
Both teams played well although the girls were just not able to compete effectively for most of the game. For about 10-15 minutes during the late first half they had field dominance and made several good attacks on the goal but by the second half the boys were ahead 4-0 and the girls were obviously tuckered. At that point the coach dialed back the boys’ offense to long kicks and headers to make them work harder. Two of their better players were sidelined with injuries (one with a broken arm from a previous game against Mara’s team) which didn’t help. But the girls were troopers and played hard until the final whistle.
Both teams did well on passing and setting up plays. Where the girls had problems was in pressing attacks and kicking. They seemed to have a lot of trouble with just putting a big boot on the ball when appropriate. At one point the girls had to switch out for a goal kick because the original girl wasn’t able to kick it past the outer goal box. There was one girl who had quite a foot on her who had quite a few nice long kicks.
The best moment though was another girl who crushed Josh twice, once just blowing past him with ease and another where she took the ball away from him and headed down field so quickly Josh had to look around to figure out what happened. Josh’s mom and I laughed and laughed.
Another amusing thing was that the one girl who had a really strong kick would use it to clear the ball on defense. But she wouldn’t just kick it out of bounds. She’d bounce it off the legs of an opponent and then out of bounds, thereby achieving a sweet trifecta —
Now that’s clever.
The boys had one excellent score, a cross goal kick from far right to left, deftly executed.
Corwin didn’t end up having much of a game. He got in a few good kicks and did reasonably well in encounters but the girls only pushed hard for a small part of the game and because of the paucity of big kicks there were a lot fewer opportunities for the mid-field & defenders to boot back.
Corwin wins an encounter
Mom is now more fully participating in guinea pig rescue. Somehow some animal control people in another town discovered a couple of guinea pigs that someone had put in a dumpster. A local took them in temporarily. Mom was convinced to drive over to that town today to pick them up and keep them here temporarily until the main rescuer can take them. Luckily these are male guinea pigs and so not at all suitable for adding to our current guinea pig crew. It make for some interesting dinner time conversation as Alice and Charles discussed the exponential possibilities of guinea pig breeding. Alice assumed the guinea pigs would be married first, of course, although we didn’t get in to who would officiate at such an event.
Mom liked their odd fur which has ruffs in it so it sticks up funny rather than being a smooth coat from front to back.
Alice had her first soccer game this evening. At her age they don’t have separately scheduled games but just have them during practice. This makes pictures much more challenging because it’s almost dusk by game end but because it’s my little sweety pumpkins I tried anyway.
Alice started on the sideline but was put in after the first period (I think they had 5 or 6 periods, I am not sure how that worked). She played goalie for a while but then was unleashed on the field. At first she just stood around, apparently amazed at being in a game but after a bit of … encouragement from her loving father she started running around like she had crazed squirrels in her shorts, the same as the other kids were doing.
Alice had two good runs, almost scoring on both of them although I am not sure that she has really grasped the whole “goal line” concept. Afterward she said that the game was “very fun” and “great!” so it seems likely that she will be willing to play again.
In “small town notes”, Alice has met a new friend in kindergarten who is now her best friend. Alice does not, however, remember her name. Alice did recognize her when she turned out to be a player on the other team. She also turned out to be the younger sister of a girl who played on Corwin’s soccer team back in the day. We talked to the family but Alice still doesn’t know her name.
I am not sure what the final score was. The scoring and officiating was rather relaxed because it was hard enough to keep the kids actually playing. A coach and a parent stopped own goals at one point to keep the ball in play. Only half the field was used and the goals were marked by cones which would frequently be knocked over by the ball. Whether that was a score or not I have no idea. There were lots of excursions outside the boundaries. At one point a boy on Alice’s team got control of the ball and drove upfield to his own goal. He figured this out before scoring and then drove all the way back to the other goal before kicking it out of bounds. One girl thought she’d scored because she kicked it in to the official goal on the side of the playing field. The first score was about 10 seconds in when the other team kicked off and Alice’s team didn’t seem to realize play had started so the kicker just ran up and booted the ball in to the goal. Things got started after that.
There was a lot of shoving in the game and not just across teams. Several players on both teams wanted the ball and should push other players out of the way regardless of team. At one point a player actually grabbed the ball and curled up around it to keep it from a teammate. Another child would fall down and cry on a regular basis, sometimes because he was pushed but other times for no apparent reason. His mom tried to convince him to sit out and calm down but he refused.
I did like the cascading failures. At least twice, possibly more, one kid would fall, trip, or be shoved which would knock over another kid, who would knock over another kid, like a set of dominoes or bowling pins.
Overall a good time for Alice.
Alice’s friend is the girl in red
I have been very negligent in not mentioning that several weeks ago Mom bought “Sea Monkeys” for the kids. I don’t know how they got Mom to agree but there they are. Very tiny, but there. Corwin remembers to feed them sufficiently regularly. I wondered what would happen when the food ran out but Mom tells me they came with a year’s worth and I can’t believe they’ll still be around a year from now. At least we’ve got it checked off the list so we can move on to other things.
[Dinner conversation]
Mom: How was soccer practice?
Alice: I was playing and I had to sit down because someone hurt my foot.
Mom: What happened?
Alice: They kicked a ball in to the boo-boo on my foot.
Dad: [clarifying] The one she got from being run over by the Barbie car.
Mom: No, that foot is the one Poly scratched. The Barbie car got her other foot.
Alice: [patronizingly] That’s right, Daddy.
Yesterday Zina and Claire came over along with Matt. For some reason Zina decided water balloons would be the thing. They decided to use normal size balloons instead of the normal water balloon sized ones. This made carrying them rather interesting for little girls in the age range of 5-10 years. Most of them were literally bigger than their heads. At one point they tried to move them from the back porch to the front driveway and managed to lose half of them just in transport.
They then had the idea of trying to get the boys (Charles and Matt) who decided to shoot back with water guns. Unsurprisingly the water guns were a better choice despite the lower momentary flow volume. It was even worse when the girls decided to go mobile and launch from the Barbie car. They managed to pop another half of their balloons this time mostly on themselves. I don’t think they managed to actually throw a single one of them, much less hit either of the boys.
It all ended rather acrimoniously with the girls become rather frustrated because they were soaking wet and the boys almost completely dry with the water balloon supply almost completely depleted. I had tried to help a bit without getting involved (by, for instance, decreeing “no raids” on the water balloon ammo dump) but I think the girls were unable to overcome a lack of itchy trigger fingers and faulty weapon design.
Corwin’s game this week was a rematch with the team they played for the first game. It seems that there are very few teams at this age now so the set of games is also rather limited. The coach has been trying to get some out of league games to round it out.
The boys started a bit slow but by the middle of the first quarter they were playing very well, better than they have in the two previous games. There was lots of good passing and plays, although no triple headers (several doubles). Corwin did run a bit, had a number of good clears and kicks and even a couple of headers.
The other team was playing well too but just couldn’t finish their attacks. I didn’t notice so much during the game but reviewing the pictures afterwards they really did make a number of strong attacks on the goal which either just didn’t quite make it or were broken up at the very last moment (at least once they broke past the goalie and were stopped only by an alert defender jumping in).
Both defenses were strong with lots of good back up for the goalies. Corwin’s team scored twice on well executed plays plus one penalty kick. The other team was held scoreless until scoring twice in the last four minutes after Corwin’s team switched to glide because they were so far ahead. They might well have been saved only by the referee’s whistle for end of game and the penalty kick, winning 3-2.
Charles team had a very good game today. I think almost all of the players showed up and were in generally good form. The final score was 6-0 which is worse than it sounds. The other team wasn’t totally out of it, although Charles’ s team was definitely the better team on the field. I think a big problem for the other team was not supporting their goalie, who would often face two or three of Charles’ team on the attack which is a losing situation for any goalie. Even for goal kicks Charles team would line the edge of the goal box even though the goalie couldn’t really get any air with her kicks so it would basically just go straight to Charles’ team for another score attempt with all the defenders further away.
Charles still had some tripping problems but otherwise he did well. He got some excellent kicks and clears and a few runs at the goal. At one point his tripping caused him to get kneed in the head, which he managed to shake off. Shortly after that Charles caught a goal kick right in the chest. He was somewhat dysfunctional for a few minutes after that but did not have to leave the game. He played on, our little tough guy.
Charles in a happier moment of the game
Today the kids, particularly Alice and Charles, helped me achieve something that I have never managed before — to completely use up a box of staples. Before children, I used staples so rarely that I would lose the stapler, the box of staples, or render the staples unusable through some accident, long before the box was empty. But today, little Alice came in to work on a project and I was able to put the last two blocks of staples in to the stapler. I had previously used up all the broken rows so these last two were in pristine condition. Oh, what a proud day!
This is the kind of youth gang activity that we have to put up with here. I, as a concerned citizen, attempted to make a record of this so that perhaps the authorities can be persuaded to intervene.
Alice has been going a bit far afield in her little car. She had an adventure the other day after driving all the way to Zina’s house. On the way back she was accosted by a local neighborhood lady for driving on the street, which is admittedly not the best thing. Alice was so distraught she fled to another neighbor’s house with Zina where the car was abandoned while Alice walked home. Meanwhile I had become concerned about Alice and was cruising the local streets on my bike attempting to find her but managing to miss while still hitting Zina’s and Claire’s houses.
Alice refused to go out until Mom came home and I wasn’t enthused about dragging the car all that distance. It was dusk by then, though, so Mom took a flashlight and Alice wore my headlamp which had the unfortunate consequence of making it somewhat fun. The kids had thought the car was dead but they had just gotten a rope stuck under the accelerator. Mom did have to drag the car the last little bit but she needed the exercise.
We have since restricted Alice to going only to Clarie’s house, which involves crossing only two dead end streets and no open road driving.
On the plus side, while watching Alice drive near Claire’s, it was clear she was learning the correct techniques for doing donuts and laying rubber plastic in a car. Mom was thrilled to hear that. Alice also managed to drive full speed between the van and the car on the driveway and in to the garage without hitting either vehicle or the garage. It was actually quite impressive for a five year old. She has also grasped the concept of reverse. Low gear, not so much.
P.S. Don’t tell Mom but I think it’s clear whose genes contributed here.
Charles had a game this evening. It was originally to be his first game but the coaches on both teams had sorority events so they moved it to a practice time.
The kids were definitely playing better and managed to achieve a 1-1 tie. It might have been 2-2 but both teams had a score rescinded due to an error.
Charles managed to finish the game although he still had his tripping problem. He had severall good runs but wasn’t all that aggressive on offense. There was some actual interesting play but nothing that really stands out.
One thing I noticed is that Charles’ team seems more average. There are no stand out players, but only a couple of players that just aren’t in the game. Almost all the team is fair to good players, which is a little different. Charles himself hasn’t been clearly the best player as he was last season, much more just one of the better ones.
Ema’s little brothers was on the other team. He scored the one goal for his team when Charles was goalie. It was an excellent shot, in the upper left corner well over Charles’ outstretched hands. Other than that, though, I don’t remember many goal shots against Charles.
Mom has been enjoying cranking on Charles every day. He’s getting a nice big gap between his front teeth. In the not so distant future Charles will get braces in front to close the gap so that his incisors can actually come in. Right now those teeth are rotated and behind the rest due to lack of room.
So far the saddest part for Charles was the day when they had two snacks at school, one he didn’t like and the other popcorn based so that Charles didn’t get any snack at all. He was very sad. Otherwise he seems to have adjusted reasonably well.
Enjoying the great outdoors on a log
The girl gang (Alice, Zina, Claire, Olivia) really like the guinea pigs. They will take them out most days, just to hang out in the yard with them, or cruising, watch TV, or just sit with them. At least the guinea pigs are far more tolerant and will do things like just sit on the log when put there and not scamper off.
So Alice is lacking a bit in personal modesty. Mom has been working on not having her knees up above the table top during dinner but has only had moderate success. Mom makes her wear shorts under her dresses but she takes them off as soon as she gets home.
So Dad decided he’d try some intervention when Alice was laying on her back on the couch clutching her ankles with her knees on her chest. I declared that if Alice showed her butt, then I got to pinch. This made Alice unhappy, so I leaned in close…
Dad: I have a secret plan for you.
Alice: What?
Dad: It’s a clever little scheme.
Alice: What ?!?
Dad: You could not show your butt.
Alice: No I couldn’t.
Clearly it’s a mother / daughter issue and I should leave it Mom’s capable hands.
Corwin’s team had a tough game with a heart breaking late score for a final of 2-3. Like Charles’ game but more so it featured a lot of missed scoring in the first half. At least two long shots missed by inches, one actually bouncing off the post. There were a number where there was a clear shot but the kicker just missed the shot. A couple of others where the follow up on the initial shot was lacking.
While this was going on the other team scored once during the first half and another in the third quarter. At this piont one of the fathers called out after yet another just barely missed shot “between the posts!”. Apparently this worked because the kid then scored two goals in 10 minutes or so. This lead to a 2-2 score in the late fourth quarter when the other team had a really excellent play with a cross shot across the goal to a waiting player on the other side who then powered it in. It’s the kind of thing Corwin’s coach has been working on with the kids for years. I am not sure they found the lesson illuminating though.
Corwin did well, although he needs to either run faster or learn to plan ahead better. When he managed to get to the ball he would almost always make a good kick, long and accurate. That’s what makes his lack of effort on running so frustrating.
The game did have a triple header which was impressive.
Charles had his first soccer game of season today. It went tolerably, even though they lost 1-4. The other team was playing better but not totaly dominant. Charles’ team had several bad breaks early on with shots that just barely missed the goal (just wide of the post, one time literally just a couple of inches short of crossing the goal line). Charles seemed a little off to me, not seemingly as energetic. It might be that the field was twice the size as last season’s so he wasn’t able to move around on it as much (relatively).
Charles did have some good moments. One long drive that didn’t quite score and quite a lot of small drives. He was kicking well with a lot of good clears. He slowed down a bit after he was hit in the groin by a fast ball. He sat out the 3rd quarter to rest up and went back in the 4th. However, about half way through that he tripped over a ball and landed on it with his chest. He was unable to continue after that and didn’t recover until it was being healthy or sitting and watching Corwin’s game.
One thing I noticed though was that Charles was tripping a lot more. Quite a number of times Charles would get the ball and break away only to fall down from the ball or another player. This is what eventually took him out of the game. Perhaps he’s having a growth spurt.
Charles’ game did feature a double header, a header followed by another header. Josie and Mason were on the opposing team but I didn’t get a good shot of the three of them.
The tooth fairy had a busy night last night, having to fork out for four teeth, two from Corwin and two from Alice, one dollar coin for each. Corwin didn’t think much of it but Alice was very excited about her money. I suspect she’ll have lost it and the memory of it within a day.
Today was Alice’s first day of soccer. Her enthusiasm has varied quite a bit, with a low point last week of “I don’t want to play soccer!”. But we sent her out anyway. She seemed to have an OK time and said that it was OK. She kicks well but does have a few attention span problems.
Alice has always been somewhat clutchy but Charles has, over the last several months, also become more fond of physical contact with Mom. On the Chicago trip they actually fought over space next to Mom while walking along. The fact that Mom has two sides frequently doesn’t occur to them.
Mom is not actually overly fond of the attention, especially if she’s carrying something or trying to go somewhere. When the contest escalates to grabbing and hanging on Mom’s clothes (particularly the waist band of her pants) she can get a bit testy.
It does make restaurant seating easier. Naturally Mom has to sit between Charles and Alice. Corwin has to sit as far away from Alice as possible which leaves me in that space. It’s all good.
Zina and Claire have been coming over to visit Alice quite a bit lately. They have had several tea parties (during which Mom provides them with lemonade for tea and vanilla wafers for scones). Other than tea parties the favorite activity of the girl gang is playing with the guinea pigs.
One day they set up a maze in the sun room using the cardboard bricks from the basement. I made them close the doors so that it would only be difficult if a g’piggy escaped from the maze. However, while the g’piggies did not do so well at maze running (which may have been because we fed them quite a bit to keep them calm while the maze was being constructed. The g’piggies were distinctly unmotivated as far as I could tell.
But there were bigger adventures in store. At one point the girls had them out in the back yard sans cage, just sitting next to the girls. I did discourage putting the g’piggies in the big brush burn pile in the back yard. Otherwise the g’piggies were able to play in the back yard for a while and also in the front yard. What Mom found interesting is that when we first had the g’piggies putting them down on the grass and not holding on to them would result in them bolting for freedom the instant your hand was off them. But now the g’piggies seem much more resigned / willing to hang out near the girls. Whether this is because the g’piggies are most used to us, or the girls are less scary, or a lot more scary, is unclear.
I found out later that I should have been keeping a better eye on the girls. They got out the Barbie car and were tooling around with the guinea pigs. That none of the got squished or seemed noticeably traumatized is to me an amazing thing. We gave the g’piggies a day of rest after that.
Charles did not have a soccer game today for some reason involving the coaches and the other team, it was not made clear to me. Therefore we went to Corwin’s first game of the season.
It was a good game. The offense was a bit off for the first half but did much better in the second. Both defenses did well, which lead to a final score of 0-0. The goalies made lots of saves, while the offense (on both sides) just didn’t seem to be able to push through for a goal, with quite a few missed opportunities.
Corwin needs to run more, of course, but he still managed some good kicks and one very nice header. I will admit that I now have a picture of Corwin actually running in a soccer game so it’s not impossible.
Yesterday I had a slice of the first apple from Mom’s apple trees. It was the best ever in the world apple. I might just stop eating apples entirely as it can only be downhill from here on out, the apple was so tasty. Sweet with just the right amount of tart, crunchy in a texturally perfect way. Truly the pinnacle of modern pomology.
[Dinner conversation]
Dad: And last year, Charles’ entire class was attacked and eaten by bears.
Alice: No they weren’t!
Dad: Oh yes, it was a big news story.
Alice: But Charles is right here!
Dad: Oh, that’s just zombie Charles.
Alice: [to Charles] Dad is just trying to fool us! You’re not really a zombie.
[Dinner time again]
Dad: I think I want some cookie dough. [Grabs Alice’s thigh]
Alice: I don’t have any cookie dough in there!
Dad: Yes you do,
Alice: So do you.
Dad: No, my thighs are filled with sand.
Alice: So are mine.
Dad: No, because girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.
Alice: No I am not! I am mean to Corwin all the time.
Charles has been fitted with his first dental appliance. It’s something that’s stuck to the roof of his mouth. Mom gets to crank a little gear in it once a day to make it wider, which will hopefully make Charles’ mouth wider as well. Unfortunately this has also made him even harder to understand. Charles’ biggest complaint is not being allowed to eat sticky sweets.
