Eleanor plays soccer

Since it is fall and the time to start new things, Eleanor also started playing soccer this month! She loved both gymnastics, swimming this past summer, and the field hockey camps at William and Mary earlier this year. There is an 8 week league here in town that practices and has games on Saturday mornings and we figured it would be a good opportunity for her to try out the sport with minimal commitment, especially as I'm not supposed to travel out of town right now because of the twins. She is fairly competitive and seems to really like being active and playing sports and so far it has been a success. They have a 30 minute practice and then a 30 minute "game." Score isn't kept, but Eleanor certainly keeps track of her own goals (one the first week and two her second week). She does fairly well with practice and then plays pretty hard the first 10-15 minutes of the game, but by then she is so sweaty and tired that she seems pretty much done the last 10-15 minutes. She takes looots of water breaks and we even had to switch her to an adult-sized water bottle because she drank so much the first week that her kid water bottle ran out (she takes after Chris!). She does love the snack they get after the games though - juice box and a pack of gummies.

Jane had insisted on wearing Eleanor's alternate jersey and at one point we couldn't find her, only to find out she had wandered onto the field barefoot with her snack cup and blended right in! Can you spot her?

One of our neighbors is also playing in the same league, so the first week Eleanor's team (the Mystics) played against her team.

The fans on the sidelines:

And, of course, snacks at the end of the game:

And here are a few good videos - the first is Eleanor toward the earlier half of her games (focused, competitive):

EleanorSoccer from Katie Stratton on Vimeo.

And the second is Eleanor toward the end of her game (easily distracted, clearly ready for a water break, doing some dancing): 

EleanorSoccerDance from Katie Stratton on Vimeo.