El futbol

Hi, sports fans - Well, Q has now donned the colors of his tribe and sallied forth to do honorable battle with rivals from another valley on the rectangular field of death. He was pretty nervous going in, but excited - he spent twenty minutes at home before we left for the game doing a kickabout in the front yard, working through his feelings. And not long afterward, he trotted out as a defenseman against the Wildcats of Lee, Massachusetts.

Lee is a football town, really, and these were probably not their best collection of athletes. A couple of real stellar players, but overall, the Strikers of Williamstown were too much for them, and the scoring started early and kept a feverish pace throughout. Lee did muster a couple of goals, and played valiantly and with admirable sportsmanship, but Williamstown scored probably triple the number of goals. Though officially, no one kept score. (Unofficially, Alex's dad can tell you who took how many shots and scored how many goals, because he wrote it down in a notebook.)

Q opened up as a defender, and that seems likeliest to be his most natural position - at one point in the first half, someone sent a lovely cross just rolling happily across the front of the goal, and Q, who, had he taken two steps and poked, could have coaxed it across the line for the easiest score in recorded history, but he watched it roll past, and then it ocurred to him that he might have been able to get to it in time. Not looking like a goal-hungry player at that point. But whenever Lee threatened to make a break, Q sprinted from wherever he was on the field and chopped them down. Defense brings him to a boil when offense cannot.

But in the second half, the nerves had dissipated, and he took that game over. He scored twice, and probably took four other shots after looooong runs, typically up the sideline, but a couple of times through the middle. Parents around us were admiring his ball-handling skills as well as his speed, and one in particular - Jakob's dad - told me how impressed he was that Q will keep the ball going forward, keep control of it, but all the time be watching the defender, and as soon as the defender commits one way, zip!, Q goes the other. I swelled up like a balloon when I heard that one. It really was a great day - he looked like the Q of old, charging around, taking command without being told to. He took three or four corner kicks - not because anyone said "Q, take it," but because it felt natural and he walked up and did it. He had a grin on his face many, many times...Crushing the other team will do that for you. Tomorrow they play a team from Pittsfield. That might not go quite so well....

It was a hoot. Alex came over for a play date afterward, and the three of us ate lunch and yukked it up at Dunkin Donuts to celebrate the victory. (Janneke and T were off doing the shopping.)

Off to continue editing the family video. We're down to 30 minutes, 34 seconds - I have got to start getting a little more merciless with the cuts...