Soccer

Yes.....Soccer.  That's the title.....Nothing fancy.  This is what I base my come back on.....Friggen Soccer.

I left blogging for a little because I was tired.  It wasn't some move to gain sympathy and cries to not go like some others do.  I was just tired and out of material.  Frankie did amazing in Kindergarten, and that basically left me with no material.  Its hard to connect sometimes with other special needs families when all you say is "He's doing AMAZING" blah blah blah

Well thankfully for all of you Summer and the first few weeks of school have been less then AMAZING!   Yay Material back!

I thought it was time....it was time to get him involved in some typical kid things.  I right away new we were doing cub scouts and that sign up was done.  Then came a night in August while drinking my second glass of wine and watching some terrible reality show about parents who put their kids in too many sports, I decided I was signing BOTH my kids up for soccer.  

The next morning, I confessed to my husband that in my buzzed state I proceeded to take his credit card from this wallet and sign our kids up for soccer.....oh and not the special needs kind, no no, the typical kind.

So Saturday and Sunday mornings I was to report to the soccer field....3 kids in had, 2 in different age groups on different fields.  My daughter cried the first 2 weeks....then became a Super Star

Hot Pink Socks is mine :)

The boy.....well The boy.   Frankie started out thinking, he LOVED soccer.  He loves to kick the ball, yay soccer.  What we he did not anticipate was kicking that ball and maybe having other people take it, or get run into, or miss a goal, no, that he was not prepared for.  Soccer is over in 2 weeks....and up until this weekend, my son or I left crying from soccer, without fail.  There were days he had social anxiety and would hit, days kids called him a name and he took it to another level, days he threw himself on the floor because he was tired.....days he was ejected from games.

Its hard when parent volunteers are coaching.  They don't know what a child on the spectrum is like....have no clue how to deal with him.  I have this huge sense of guilt as I leave my 4 year old on a field across the grass and hover over my 6 year old praying he won't hit someone.

Last week I made a public wish.  I wished that we could make it through a weekend of soccer without one of us crying.  Saturday is practice and luckily he likes just practice so we made it through all tear free.  I woke up Sunday morning, started at the ceiling and thought....I can't do this, I can't do another Sunday of madness.

Soccer was at 11 and I'm pretty sure I didn't decide till 10 that we would go.  I knew they might be doing pictures that day.... if you know me, I love a good picture and so we got ready.  I did the whole talk in the car, "hands to ourselves, nice words only, if someone says your a loser say I don't care".......I do this everyday.  My stress turned to thankfulness when I saw the guy who runs the soccer club was working with Frankie's group.  I gave him the quick heads up on Frankie's previous weeks.  He put Frankie in goal (F WORDS FFFFFFF)....weeks prior Frankie had been in goal and had a meltdown.  To my surprise Coach K actually got in the goal with Frankie and helped him out, teaching him what he had to do instead of just letting him stand there.  Coach also made HUGE...and I mean HUGE deals out of what Frankie accomplished, the positive reinforcement was over the top, even in my book.  He stayed in goal, he liked it and hour later he was smiling for his team photo.

My wish came True.  This weekend there were no tears at Soccer....Hallelujah.  Only 2 weeks left!