Brayden just started summer soccer this week.  James and I went away a bit on the disappointed side.  (Pathetically).  We thought Brayden was a pretty quick kid. . . and we thought that he had a lot of interest in soccer.  But you would never know from what took place on Tuesday night, and tonight.  He sort of couldn’t keep up with a lot of the kids.  They, for some reason, seemed like they were a lot more advanced than him.  Some knew about throw ins and goal kicks, and dribbling and I even saw a couple of kids passing, rather than just being every man for himself.  I sort of walked away puzzled, and frustrated, which I’m not terribly happy to admit.

During tonight’s game, I was a little nosy, so I asked some of the kids if they had already done Kindergarten–I talked to three kids.  Two of them already finished Kindergarten, and one was going into second grade!!  After tonight’s soccer, we came home and looked up a little information about the league in our town.  Brayden is on a U5/U6 league.  We checked out the age timeline and realized that he’s playing with kids who were born from August 2005 until July of 2007.  He was born in June of 2007–now it seems to all make sense.  Out of the hundred kids in the league, he’s probably in the youngest 5% out of everyone.  No wonder he can’t keep up!  He’s playing with almost second graders!  Not that it’s an excuse, of course.  But also, that gives me a little peace of mind, since next year, he will be on the same league and will be at least on the middle end of the age spectrum.  Give him a year, and hopefully he’ll be keeping up with the best of them 🙂

For the record, James doesn’t normally swim in spandex. . . he just finished a bike workout.  Hence, the biking shorts.