Soccer Practice and Apple Picking!

Today was Aidan's first day of soccer! He talked all morning about how he was going to kick the ball and listen to the coach. Ok, I was telling him he needed to listen to the coach. We planned a trip to Eckert's for apple picking after wards, so all of us piled in the car. Julien was complaining that we were too early but, when we walked in, there was a ton of people there already. Classes are held on an indoor soccer field at a place called Vetta. As we got there, the first class of the morning was finishing and we spotted our friend from playgroup who goes too. Julien and Aidan got his name tag and found out who his coach was while I talked with my friend and watched her boy. Aidan's coach is Coach David. (that should be easy to remember.) He was so excited to get on the field. I stayed on the sideline with Olivia, talking with another mom, while Julien helped Aidan. (This is a parent/child class. We're not ready for an individual class.) The first 5-10 minutes were a little rough. I could see Julien getting frustrated as Aidan refused to participate. He wanted to kick the ball. Then he wanted to sit with the ball and watch everyone else do the warm up exercises. I tried to tell Daddy that this was normal for Aidan. (Remember gymnastics??) And he may need a couple sessions to get used to it. I'm not sure what happened, if the coach got him motivated or they got to the fun part or what, but Aidan started participating! The coach was pretty good about trying to get the kids to stay on task and very friendly. He definitely earned his money today- ten 2-3 year olds for 45 minutes. Oh boy! They held the ball against the wall with their heads, they kicked it at the wall, threw it against the wall. They had to set cones back up with their feet and not their hands. They jumped in hoops. They did a little red light/green light drill with running the field. At the end they get together in a huddle, put their hands in and yell "I like soccer!" All in all, very cute! I told Aidan I thought he did a good job and I was proud. You could tell he was pretty happy with himself. And it wore him out too. So, this week we need to practice what we learned and talk about listening to Coach David. I hope next week we'll jump right in and participate from the get go. I think he's really going to like this class.

After soccer and a quick bottle for Olivia, we headed off to Eckert's for lunch and apple picking. Lunch was great and the wait to be seated was short. Although, it was enough time for Olivia to spit up all over her shirt and get changed, take Aidan to the bathroom and have him tell me the big potty was scary and for Livvie to get fussy. *Sigh* Once we were done with lunch, things settled down and we had a good time. Olivia slept in the baby bjorn and Aidan was excited to ride out to the trees in the hay wagon. (We talked about how cool the John Deere tractors were. :) ) Once we got out there, Aidan was all about picking apples. We had watched the Caillou where he goes to the apple orchard with his class before we left the house, so we talked about how Caillou picked the apples off the tree and not off the ground. We got a bunch of golden delicious, some red delicious, and some jonathans. You know as much fun as it was, it was a lot of waiting in line. We waited in line to get on the wagon to go out to the orchard, waited to get a ride back, and waited to pay for our apples when we got back. Much to their credit, the lines moved very fast though. I guess I was hoping for a less commercial experience. After apple picking, we tried to get Aidan to ride some of the rides they had. They had bounce houses, swings and pony rides. He didn't want to do any of that. He wanted to play in the big sandbox they had, of course. We decided at that point we could do that at home and we could go now. Aidan was terribly upset by this but once we got moving in the car, he dropped the protest and promptly fell asleep. By the time we got home, we were all exhausted. It was a fun day but long. We are planning on going to the airshow at Scott AFB tomorrow however, the weather may ruin our plans. If it rains like they say it will, we'll stay home. Maybe that's a good thing after how busy today was.

On the potty training front, Aidan continues to do well. He refused to use the big potty while we were out and didn't even want to use the travel potty I take in the car but, he was dry when we got home. I think he holds it so he can go in his own potty. Now the challenge is to get him to stop using the little potty and use the big one. One step at a time.