Big Weekend For Eric

Wow, it's been two weeks since I've posted on this blog. I'll have to play catch-up this month, to include photos from Easter. For today, I want to talk about Eric's busy weekend.

Eric had a "soccer festival" on Saturday, where each team played 2 games, with each game lasting only 10 minutes. After the games, all the kids got a medal and a cupcake. This marked the end of his Spring soccer season. The kids all mainly travel in a pack down the field at this age, and all season, Eric has mainly been following all the other kids in the back of that pack. Once in a while the ball ends up right in front of him. He tries to kick it, but invariably another kid gets in front of him and takes the ball away--sometimes even a kid from his team.

For some reason, the kids on Eric's team usually don't show up to the games. For the last couple of weekends, only two or three kids show up, counting Eric, even when there are eight kids on the roster. There were only two kids from Eric's team this weekend, so once again we had to borrow players from the other team, which is why Eric usually ends up wearing a penny so that his team and the borrowed players match.

The ball was traveling toward the goal. Eric was behind the another kid when the other kid happened to fall down right in front of the goal. That gave Eric an opening and he kicked the ball right in. The last time this happened, he kicked the ball into his team's goal, but this time, it was the other team's goal. GOAL! Eric scored a goal, his first goal of the season! He got his first goal on the last game day! He had the biggest smile on his face.

Eric missed his baseball game on Saturday because of the soccer festival, but he had another baseball game on Sunday. His baseball team has a roster of 10 players, and they usually have 8-9 players show up. They need at least nine players, and with eight players they have to give up an out in the #9 batting slot, so we try to go to all his baseball games. The scheduling was tight on Sunday since the game was at 1:30pm and Eric had a piano recital at 3pm.

Eric usually strikes out during his turns at bat, and he usually swings at every pitch. Patrick has to give him a pep talk before each turn at bat to remind Eric that he doesn't have to swing at every pitch. He gave him that same talk on Sunday. This time, he seemed to be watching the pitches and didn't swing at every one. He took a swing and happened to make contact with the ball. He looked as surprised as the rest of us, so he didn't start running right away. The other team had time to field the ball, so he got tagged out on his way to first base. He didn't look disappointed at being tagged out, he was smiling. That was his first hit! It was nice because almost all the boys got at least one hit during this game. They're all getting better. Unfortunately, the other team was significantly better, and we lost 3-10.

To cap off Eric's busy weekend, we went straight from the baseball game to Eric's first piano recital. Luckily, the game ended a little early, because he was the first performer. He even had time to change clothes. When it was his turn, he didn't hesitate. He walked up to the grand piano at the front of the room, he took a bow, then played his first piece. He made some memory mistakes, but he didn't seem nervous. He almost got up after he finished the first piece, then he realized that he had one more piece. He played his second piece, then took a quick bow, and almost ran towards his seat. He sat still for all of the other performances. Later, he said he didn't like all the pieces that the others played, but did like some. We were so proud of him for being able to memorize his pieces and then to bravely go up there to perform them.

After the recital, I talked to Eric about how he had such a big weekend, with the first soccer goal, the first baseball hit, and the first piano recital. I suggested going out to dinner to celebrate, and Eric enthusiastically agreed. We were so proud of him, and he was pretty proud of himself too.