The 4 Middletons: FOOTBALL!

Our little man Cooper is now playing football! EEK! How did he get so big??? I feel like he is too little to be playing because he's only 3, but then again he has enough energy for the entire team! He has practices every Wednesday and a game every Saturday until the first weekend of November. I'm super excited for him.

First practice went well. Nick is the assistant coach too (yay!). There are two 5 year olds on the team (one little guy Jared is tiny...but he's quick), and the rest of them are 3! Some of the kids are truly there to play football...while some of the others like Cooper are there to simply be around other kids. I'm not going to lie, my Cooper is NOT a sportsman. This is not an easy concept for his father to understand but he's not. Cooper would rather watch than play. I'm just happy that he is out having fun; whether that be playing hardcore football...or simply twiddling his thumbs while standing in the middle of the field!

His first game was a "gymboree." Its score wasn't kept. The rest of the games scores will be kept however. There are 4 teams total in the league. The league is an i9 league which is nationwide now. I like it because they have a huge emphasis on teaching teamwork and having fun rather than winning. Each week, each child receives an award. They have to wear football cleats which Cooper loves! Each game they have to wear their cleats, jersey (it is a reversible jersey that each kiddo gets. One side is grey, the other is light blue), shorts without pockets (for safety I guess), and a mouthguard. It is flag football, which means they cannot tackle, but I have noticed a bully or two. Luckily our team is all super sweet kids and none of them a mean or have shown any roughness, but let me tell you about this pain-in-the A*S kid on the other team.

Parker, number 20, on the team we just played will be lucky if I don't kick him to timbucktwo before the end of this season. He is so big and has no team spirit. Three times he made kids on our team cry. One of our guys wouldn't even play the second half of the game because of the jerk. He clenched his fists up as yelled "yes, I made him cry." Come on? Lousy parenting at its best. If I see it again, you better believe I will be making a phone call, there is NO reason for this kind of crap on a 3-5 year old sports team. Especially when his father is the coach.

Well, anyways...we didn't win the first game but that's perfectly okay. Our kids had a BLAST! We only lost by 6 which isn't bad considering the other team was full of probably 4 and 5 year olds. I'm a super proud Mommy of our little team. And even if we didn't win, we had the best looking little guys out there! (Even my dad said that haha). Mom and Dad came to cheer on Cooper and he loved it. He TOLD EVERYONE "there's my Grams and Pop." It made his day!

And now, for some pictures!