Don't tell Emmaline...

I thought since I'd talked a bit about Savannah and soccer, I should let you know what is going on with Emmaline. You might remember that Emmaline spent a year playing competition soccer last year. It was pretty much a nightmare for us all. I wanted her to play with the same club as Savannah to make it easier for me to get them both to practice. Plus, I really liked the trainer, but this required her to play "up" a year. I didn't really think it would be a problem because she is a really amazing player. It probably wouldn't have been a problem had she not gotten on a team with the nastiest group of girls, and parents- I must add, that I have yet to encounter. Why is it that some kids seem to have rotten luck? Anyway, the nature of the team, added to all of the time we spent getting her diagnosis, going to group therapy, math tutoring... it just turned out to be too much! She pretty much gets a bad taste in her mouth when we mention the word competition soccer.

So, we went back to recreation this year. Of course, that hasn't been what we had hoped- I mentioned the bad luck part, right? There was a really great coach that begged us to come back and play with his rec team. That would have worked out great, except 2 weeks after the season started, his father passed away and he had to return to Mexico to help his mother. The mom who took over is a great soccer player- but not a great coach. That added to the fact that it was rec and only a few players had ANY skills made for a hard year. They only won 2 games the whole year and most were a CRUSHING loss.

I found out, about mid season, that there was a really great rec team that had a coach that I had seen at church- not in my ward, but in the Spanish speaking branch. I asked him if he would be willing to let Emmaline come to his practices. He said he would, but I just never could seem to get her there. Finally, about a month ago, I felt like I HAD to get her there, no matter how hard. After the first practice, he ran up to me and said, "Emmaline has amazing talent. I love to have her at practice, but I am wondering if you will let her play games with us on Saturdays." Would I? Better than I could have hoped for! After a couple of weeks, Emmaline came home from practice and said, "Oscar (the coach), is changing to a club team. He says we can all try out, but he can only take 7 girls. I don't know if I can try out because I'm not really on the team." I quickly emailed him to ask if we would be eligible for a tryout, but he didn't answer. It also happened over a holiday, so I didn't hear anything for 2 weeks. We were so worried! We finally got her on a good team and it seemed that it was all going to end.

Finally, he called me and said he wanted to let me know when the tryout was, but he also wanted to let me know that he had already chosen Emmaline as one of the 7 he wanted to take with him. Would Emmaline be willing to come? After assuring her that it wasn't competition, just "club" (kind of in between rec and comp) she agreed. So I show up for the parent meeting... about 10 minutes late. They are discussing uniforms and I walk in just in time to hear "... and the Blast logo will be right here." Hmmmm.... Blast is a competition team. Oscar speaks English as a second language and between that and the fact that he always calls me on a cell phone that is hard to hear, I missed that this was a comp team. I look over at Emmaline who is sitting with the girls, smiling and giggling (Did I mention that these girls are nice to her? They actually seem to go out of their way to welcome her and befriend her!). I quickly write my check and decide not to tell her.

Since then, I've talked with the coaches and they are willing to take this a step at a time. If it's too much, we can miss a practice or a game. They are just so excited to have her on the team, they'll work with us. (Am I dreaming here? This is almost too good to be true!) And I've 'fessed up to Emmaline. If she thought I'd lied to her, she'd quit playing forever- just to spite me!

I know this has been long and uninteresting to everyone except me and maybe grandparents... but I just wanted to end with two of my favorite quotes from the season on Emmaline. First, from her "real" team:
"I love how Emmaline weighs all of about 40 pounds, but she is scrappier than all of the kids on both teams put together."
And from Oscar:
"Emma has a smell for the ball."
(LOVE that... pretty sure it is some kind of idiom in Spanish =)