Ella's 1st Soccer Game!

It is no secret that Ella is our most athletic, coordinated, aggressive, and fearless child of our older three.  It is just the way that she came wired and we had nothing to do with it.  As a result, she has always been the most willing to try new things at an age when her older silbings were still very timid and sometimes unwilling.  Although Ella has been involved in ballet, tap, gymnastics, and swim lessons over the years, we have never put her in a team sport until now.  After expressing an interest in playing soccer with two of her friends, I enrolled Ella last Spring to play in a rec soccer program this fall.  In addition, we added piano to the schedule (also par Ella's request) and kept her in gymnastics, but pulled her out of ballet until her soccer season is over.  Needless to say, Ella is very busy right now and keeping me very busy driving her to and from her activities in the afternoons and evenings.  

With all of that said, I have been wondering how Ella would do playing soccer.  Due to the qualities that I already mentioned that she was born with, I had a hunch that she might take to the game of soccer like a duck to water.  Although she missed her first game due to rolling her ankle pretty badly on our neighbor's trampoline, Ella was able to return to soccer after taking a week off and was able to play in her team's second game of the season today.  We had to drive all the way out to University Place and enjoyed watching her from the sidelines on a very sunny morning.  And as I expected, Ella was AMAZING!  Although she is playing with other girls who have participated in soccer for one or two years already, she simply dominated the field.  She played so aggressively and was all over the ball.  When she was on offense, anywhere the ball went, she was at the front of the pack chasing it down and kicking it. Whenever the ball rolled out of bounds, she was the first one to run out and pick it up.  And whenever the ball came to her when she played defense, she would quickly quick it back out to the other side.  She even scored a goal and seriously made seven other attempts--some of which were so close!  I have never in my mother career watched a child of mine play like this and, I must admit, it was really fun to root her on!  At one point, her coach was standing next to me and said in utter disbelief, "She is so fast!" and "She is totally fearless!"  This comes as a total compliment since her coach is a former college athlete and currently a high school P.E. teacher and has coached his two children in their own sports for years!  So, he clearly has seen his fair share of child athletes.  Anyways, it just was amazing to watch Ella play her first game and to cheer her on from the sidelines.  I am already wondering if ballet and gymnastics are not going to be her thing (but she can do all THREE splits perfectly) and if we need to put her in soccer year round.  Oh dear, we've just never had this "problem" before...

Here are some of the many pictures I took during Ella's game of her running her heart out and chasing after the ball.  Her face was so flushed and pink at the end from all of her running that Ella thought she had gotten a sunburn!  What a cute, little athlete she is!