Goooooal

K-bao has wrapped up another soccer season with the Roar. The season was generally quite successful, as measured by both K-bao's personal growth and the team's success.

Indeed, after some ups and downs over prior years, K-bao has grown in her own love for the sport, and genuinely looked forward to the weekly practices as well as the Saturday games.

Some of this was undoubtedly the social aspect; a number of her best friends are on the same squad. But the K-folks also noticed that she also started to enjoy the game more after devouring a series called The Kicks, written by US Olympic gold medalist Alex Morgan. The series includes six books that chronicle a number of middle school girls' soccer adventures, including some uplifting messages about self-empowerment and team spirit.

While K-Pop and K-Mum's primary agenda for K-bao's soccer is for her to have an activity to work out her overabundance of energy -- learning a few lessons about working in a team, winning and losing and dealing with adversity are some nice side benefits too.

K-Pop managed to capture a couple of the goals she scored over the course of the season:

That's a Wrap

K-bao wrapped up her last game of the season a couple of weekends ago. Her team, the Lions, finished the season strong, with another convincing victory. K-bao had two nice goals. 

Here she is with her teammates as well as Coach Andy, who has shepherded the girls well over the last couple of seasons, from complete newbies who picked flowers and did cartwheels as often as they kicked the ball, to an actual semblance of a real team. Unfortunately next year the team will have to break up due to league rules that separate girls based on calendar year birthdays.

Showing off her post-season medal

Hat Trick+

Let the record show that in league play yesterday young K-bao scored not one, not two, not three, but five goals for her soccer team the Lions. Almost a double hat trick.

Interestingly, on the car before the game, while we were still waiting for various family members to join us, K-bao had initiated the following dialogue with K-Pop:

• "Daddy, would you be upset if I didn't score today?" Of course not!
• "Well, would you be upset if I didn't try my best?" Well, I would probably be disappointed.
• "What if I scored a million goals but didn't try my best?" I still wouldn't like that.
• "Well, what if I tried my best but didn't score at all?" I would be very proud of you.
• "But you'd be the happiest if I tried my best and scored like 5 goals right?" Yes I suppose. But don't focus on the number of goals you're going to score.

Well, lo and behold, K-bao settled on the best outcome. And delivered exactly that number. 

Here is in fact the fifth goal (which was more of a tap-in on a rebound, after a fantastic charge downfield and an excellent first shot on goal...K-Pop wasn't fast enough with his camera on the other ones). 

Balm

Off to a weekend soccer game! K-bao puts on her fierce face, scaring even little sister C-bao. 

"Nobody messes with MY sister...except me"

While the girls wait for the K-folks to get ready, they bring out for entertainment...what else?...their treasured lip balm balls. These little cosmetic accessories have been quite a hit. Indeed, it appears that nothing brings more satisfaction to either girl then liberally applying two - or even three - layers of gloss on those overprotected lips with these balmy balls.

Conversely, nothing quite guarantees obedience than threatening to take away said balm. And once confiscated, no other subject inspires quite as much nagging either until ownership is restored ("Oh please, please may I have my lip balm back? Pretty please? I'll do anything!"). Let's hope this is a quickly passing phase (but K-Pop isn't holding his breath).

"What, you thought these oiled lips fell from the sky?"

Saturday

A typical Saturday for K-bao.

1. Wake up earlier than the household. Burst into sister C-bao's room, rousing everybody. Convince sister to jump out of bed and begin running around raucously.

2. Plead for sugary cereal for breakfast. Get turned down. Handed a bagelwich on the way to her soccer game.

3. Join her school club team, the Lions, for the first soccer game of the new season. Score a couple of nice goals. Enjoy a ton of snacks (madeleines, clementines, yogurts, juices) after the game, which appears to be the point of the whole thing for the majority of the girls.

4. Head to the chess club downtown. Play a couple of games with K-Pop. Lose game 1 due largely to watching every other game going on in the club other than her own. Dominate most of game 2 before losing concentration in the endgame.

5. Visit the mall for a late pizza lunch, followed by clementines and froyo. (After stuffing a half clementine in her mouth in one bite, exclaim loudly, "Don't think that's aggressive - I've had a whole clementine in my mouth before!")

6. Walk around the streets of San francisco. Create altogether too much noise with sister C-bao while playing with balloons and striking silly poses.

7. Shop for groceries. Serendipitously run into a kindergarten classmate. Create havoc (such as breaking into a spontaneous limbo dancing routine using checkout counter equipment).

8. Come home, quick shower, quick dinner and bedtime routine. Another full day tomorrow!

Game On

Let the record show that, after a single weekend of practice with pop-up PUGG soccer nets (acquired at what is undoubtedly an 85% gross margin from the Sports Basement), little K-bao scored four goals in her weekend soccer match.

K-Pop was volunteer coaching / refereeing the game and so couldn't go overboard with enthusiasm, but nonetheless thought it appropriate to throw his arms up and and bellow "GOOOOOOAL" each time the ball hit the back of the net.

Here K-bao puts on her game face before the match:

"I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"

Soccer

It's soccer season, and K-bao has joined a young team with her classmates. The first important question for our budding little Mia Hamm was, of course, her uniform number. Here's how the conversation went down.

K-mum: "K-bao, what number do you want to have on your soccer jersey?"
K-bao: "A trillion."
K-mum: "Um, that's too big, it has to be a smaller number."
K-bao: "A billion."
K-mum: "That's still too big, it can only be 2 digits, so less than a hundred."
K-bao: "Ok fine. Ninety-nine."

Go big or go home

We have to admit, there's a nice ring to that when we're hollering at her from the sidelines. "Go get 'em, 99!" "Nice slide tackle, 99!" "Hey get yourself back on D, 99!"

Goooooo.....Team!

Follow me, folks!

So the first game was Saturday against their cross-town rivals. Let's just say that we have high hopes that the play will one day catch up to the quality of their uniforms.

A few action shots below, including the all-important sportsmanship high-five line after the game.

World Cup

In honor of #WorldCupFever raging around the world, K-bao took little C-bao to the park to show her how to kick a ball.

Here are a few more action shots.