My daughter is not Mia Hamm

My daughter’s best friend is named Cordelia. She’s six months older which puts her in kindergarten while Danielle is still in Pre-K. And given the incredible social calendars that kids have these days (I never did any of these things when I was a kid) they don’t get to see each other enough.

So when we heard that Cordelia was signing up for a soccer class on Sunday mornings, we signed Danielle up as well. Her reaction was this. “We signed you up for soccer” (frown) “with Cordelia” (jumping up and down for joy).

So this Sunday they went. Neither Danielle nor Cordelia is particularly competitive. This class is for 5-7 year olds (both are just 5). They’re both tall though, so they fit in fine. Though neither is particularly fast or good at soccer. They do a lot of drills at the beginning. Danielle does fine. She has to be prompted to go faster occasionally but she’s a good listener. She cracks me up because occasionally she breaks into skipping instead of running.

Boys just don’t skip. I never skipped. But watching my daughter skip makes me happy because skipping is just one of those total childlike things that kids do for no reason other than that it’s fun to skip. Not optimal for soccer, however.

Finally towards the end of the class they play a 15 minute actual soccer game. Danielle and Cordelia are on the same team. They literally spend most of the time making sure they know where each other is and trying to hold hands. I’m calling to Danielle, “watch the ball” as it rolls right past her. But she just wants to hang out with Cordelia. The whole competitive thing of trying to get the ball away from someone else just doesn’t do anything for her.

Maybe Victoria will play sports…