Soccer

Nicholas asked a couple times over the summer if he could take gymnastics classes again (he did a mommy and me set of sessions the spring right before he turned 3) and so after the second or third time he brought it up, I promised him that he could this fall.  Afterall, we were going to be in town for 11 of the 12 Saturdays for once (benefit of pregnancy travel restrictions).  And I have gotten disillusioned with the swim lessons he was doing Saturday mornings at various points in the past year, so there was nothing else on his schedule.  And he is old enough that he didn't need a parent.

He brought it up again yesterday morning, asking when gymnastics classes start.  Oh shoot!  Yesterday was the first day and it was only 7am, so we had 2 hours left before the class, but I had never registered him.  I had even printed out the registration form, but never actually finished filling it out.  What are the chances that there were spaces left?  I told him we'd call when they opened and he eagerly went and got dressed and all ready so that he'd be ready to go if they had spaces.  And every 10 minutes he asked if it was time to call yet.  I called a few minutes after 8.  And the guy who answered the phone had to work hard not to laugh at me.  Spots left in the Saturday morning session?  Are you kidding me?  Of course there are spots left in every weekday morning session, but I can't really do 10am classes on Wednesdays.  (Nor can most other people, hence the fact that he had to work not to laugh at the crazy woman calling on the first day thinking she'd get a spot in a Saturday session.)

Nicholas was distraught.  He collapsed in completely heartbroken tears.  And I walked into the bedroom and woke Joe up with the simple line, "We are horrible parents." 

After comforting Nicholas for a few minutes, I went into problem-solving mode.  I screwed up on gymnastics.  So I needed to fix it.  If he couldn't do gymnastics, was there something else he could do for the fall?  I remembered getting ads for soccer lessons for an indoor place here in town, so I looked it up.  Yep, classes started this weekend as well.  And there were 8:30 and 9:30 classes for his age group.  But the key question, were there any spaces left?

So I called.  The 9:30 class was full, but there were still 2 spots left in the 8:30.  I looked at the clock.  It was now 8:25.  "If we come over right now, can we have a spot?  We will probably be 10 minutes late, is that okay?"  He assured me it would be fine.  I told Nicholas, who rejoiced, and then threw on clothes and raced over.  We walked in the door and the man at the desk was so nice and took pity on me.  "Go ahead and take him in--they are on field B.  Then you can come back to do paperwork."  Oh, thank you.  So Nicholas and I rushed to find his group and we walked in through the fencing towards the other kids and who should we see running away from the group towards the parents but one of the kids from Nicholas' preschool!  Beautiful!  And it was actually perfect because his friend was having trouble staying with the kids when he could see that his mom was there.  But once Nicholas joined the group, they had each other and he was fine.

And so Nicholas is now in soccer:

From 2013 September