Liam's continued soccer success

Liam has had another great season of soccer. His team has again done extremely well. They actually had a loss this time around in league play. They lost 4-2 to St. Mike's. But they didn't have their top goal scorer and they had their weakest goalie in the net. So they were caught on a less that stellar day and lost.

They got to play St. Mike's again in the finals of the league tournament. This was a high stakes game. The winner would go on to the state tournament. Liam's team was totally fired up. And they struck quickly and decisively, scoring fast to go up with a 3-0 lead. They did allow some goals, but finished the game 4-2.

Which meant that they were on to the state tourney.

They made it last year as well. But the weather was terrible. They had one game called for weather. Another one delayed then finally cancelled. When the second week came around they finally got the chance to play and lost to the previous year's tournament champion. They had higher hopes for this year.

Yesterday was Saturday, and their first game was today, Sunday. Liam was playing in the yard with the neighbor boy. They were climbing trees, running around, the usual boy stuff. I was raking leaves. Eventually Seamus came up and told me that Liam was hurt.

Kids at that age simply haven't developed the gift of understanding severity. "Liam is hurt" could mean anything from he has a scratch on his cheek to his legs are no longer attached to his body. And I have a policy of not overreacting when the kids get hurt. I think they take their cues on concern from their parents. And when the parents freak out they do as well. So I don't freak out. In this case I didn't even stop raking leaves!

Eventually I see Liam hopping in my direction. Oh shit. My first thought is of the game today. He is not looking good.

He makes it to me and I ask him what happened. His answer is the same as always - a distracted "What?" like I had awakened him from a nap. Um, you can't walk, you hopped to me on one leg, what the hell do you expect me to ask you?

Well he was chasing his buddy, who ran down the patio stairs of the neighbor's house, slipped, fell, and rolled his ankle. Not good.

I got him inside and took a look at it. It was already huge! Really not good. I immediately put ice on it. I left the ice on for 30 minutes, and then compressed it in an ACE wrap. Later in the evening we iced it again.

Around bedtime I asked him how it felt. He still couldn't even put weight on it. It was then that it finally struck him - there was no way he was going to be able to play today. He was devastated. I guess he just assumed that 15 or so hours would be plenty for a badly sprained ankle. I wanted to tell him "Wait 'til you're 40, it'll be 15 days!" But I didn't. He was pretty distraught already.

Morning came and he still couldn't do anything. I got out the crutches, iced him again, and went off to the fields with him. Even though he couldn't play I wanted him to be able to cheer his team on. I had called his coach the previous night to let him know the scoop. Liam is one of the best defenders, so he'd need to re-think his lineup well in advance.

We got to the field late - the traffic was incredible. There is no good way to get 20 teams worth of kids/parents/grandparents into a park smoothly. When we finally did show up the game hadn't started yet. And why hadn't it started? Because the other team hadn't shown up yet!! Liam was beside himself with joy. He was so worried they'd lose because he couldn't play. But with no competition that wasn't going to be an issue.

We hung out for 15 minutes and they finally called the game. So they will advance. They'll play up to 4 games next weekend. With any luck he'll be healed by then. I'm not 100% sure he will be. I'm going to keep icing and wrapping every hour to maximize his chances. At this point all I can do is keep my fingers crossed. But (give his bad luck) he's been pretty lucky so far!