Sunday, October 18, 2009

Soccer x 2

Let me take you back to fall 2007, where days dawned cloudy and full of rain, and the soccer games still started too early for Saturdays. Helios was just starting out in his first year of soccer as a jumpy 3-year-old who liked to run around the court in the same way a cat likes to chase spiders. Hesperos was his older brother's biggest fan, barely a year old, half walking, half stumbling after the soccer balls that he clutched to his chest with all his eager might.



Now in 2009, Hesperos is a stocky 3-year-old, still capering after his older brother but almost fully the same size and able to play soccer in his own right. He's still a little rough on the rules and enjoys carrying the ball -- his natural competitiveness results in him hiding it from his teammates as well as the opposing players. But, according to Daddy, who knows such things, Hesperos has a possible future ahead of his as a forward since he's quite good at running as fast as possible...and happens to kick the ball ahead of him as he goes, a 3-foot tall little blur on the indoor soccer field.



Early September brought a return of soccer season for both boys. Delightfully, each happened to be in a team whose t-shirt color is blue (light blue and dark blue) which minimizes the likelihood of quarreling over who gets to wear what shirt and whose team is best. (Yes, it's all about the color of the jersey.) Both boys are in teams coached by Daddy (resulting in very long Saturdays at the gym) but there's no sense of divided loyalties in this family. Due to the age difference between the boys, there's no risk they'll ever play against each other.



But this doesn't mean that the two brothers won't meet on the field every now and then. And afterward, there's always time for a more-or-less amicable play on the tire swing.












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