The Next Mia Hamm?

Every year, Claire's daycare has Hobart soccer coach Shawn Griffin run a soccer camp for kids ages 3-5. This year, Claire got to be a "Little Kicker" and had a lot of fun learning about soccer. Some days she was nervous about playing and would tell me in the morning, "No, Mommy, I'm not playing soccer today. I don't wanna go to daycare!" Once she got out there, though, she had fun and even came close to scoring a few goals. I think her apprehension for playing came from the fact that she was playing with kids who are older and bigger than she is. Camp ran for five weeks and we got to go to a special family clinic the last night. It was at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, on the soccer practice fields, and all of the Little Kickers showed us what they learned this year.



Listening to Coach Griffin's pre-game speech



Warming up and practicing dribbling the ball



When Coach Griffin said, "Freeze!" the kids had to stop the ball with a certain body part.



Freeze!!



One last time!



Claire got picked to be on the "Shirts". How cute is she in her pinny??



At first, she did not want to go out on the field. Daddy got her going, though!


Out on the field and ready to run!



Go, Claire! She came so close to scoring!!



Helping a friend who was also nervous about going out on the field.



Yay! Everyone is ready to go out and play now!



On second thought..... I think they were just ready to play, not necessarily ready to play soccer!



Each kid got to bring home a soccer ball!



My favorite Little Kicker


We took Claire out for ice cream after the game and walked down the long pier at Seneca Lake. She seemed to have fun that night, and she really loved the special attention she got from Mommy and Daddy, since we left Jack home with JoJo (for his own special attention!!). When I was putting Claire to bed I asked her a question, one that we ask her at the end of every day, "What was your favorite part of today?" I expected her to say, "getting ice cream" or "playing soccer" but my sweet little girl really surprised me and said, "Helping my friend Emily when she was sad at soccer." Claire D., you are the sweetest litle girl I know!