It's official: AJ's growing up

Our baby isn't just our baby anymore. All of a sudden he can claim a couple other titles from outside organizations, titles like "soccer player" and "preschooler."

Regarding soccer, I knew this day was coming. But the preschool news was a pleasant surprise. I'll get to that in a moment.

Tonight marked AJ's first soccer practice, and boy did he have fun. He got to wear his new shin guards, socks and special shoes. He got to wrestle with his buddy Gino, who he hadn't seen in over a month. He got a Transformer sticker. And, oh yeah, he even got to kick around a soccer ball.

I give the coach (one of Jeff's colleagues) a lot of credit. His expression in the photo below speaks volumes about how much patience is required to keep a group of 4-year-olds focused. They covered a lot of ground on their first night: Run. Kick the ball. Kick the ball back this way. Don't use your hands. And no tackling.

How much do you suppose they'll remember when they re-group tomorrow night?

Now, to the preschool news. AJ has been accepted into the school's early readiness program for fall. He'd been on a waiting list due to his mother's inability to pay attention to registration deadlines. But thankfully, I got a call today that a spot opened up, so we're in! It's not that I think AJ needs the program to prepare for kindergarten, but rather, all of his friends from daycare are going, so I don't want him left behind with only younger kids to play with.

It's kind of a weird sensation to commit to these outside groups. And especially both in one day. Up until now, our family's schedule has been based on Jeff's and my committments. Now, we're throwing committments of AJ's into the mix. I know this is just a small sampling of what's to come, but somehow I feel like we all grew up a little more today.