The Mother of all Soccer Meltdowns

This morning was Matthew's first soccer game. He has been super excited about soccer and was really looking forward to his first game. As was I. We arrived at the field and all seemed well. The boys were happy and Matthew was eagerly anticipating his game.

Shortly after we got there, Matt's coach arrived and handed out the league shirts. They had taken longer than anticipated to print, so we had to wait until today to get them. Matt chose number 2. I quickly switched his shirt and tucked in his league shirt.

Unfortunately, all the shirts were ordered in a youth size small, which on four-year-olds, looked more like a men's XL. The kids were swimming in it. All the kids seemed to take this in stride… except for Matthew. No. My kid got pissed. I don't mean kinda upset in a "little bit frustrated" sort of way. I mean he got down right, mad-at-the-world, somebody hand me a shotgun P.O.'d.

The infamous shirt…


Now, when my youngest gets it in his head that he is ticked off, there is nothing short of a nuclear weapon that could change his mind. The damage was done. The mood was set. Matthew commenced to melting down. Loudly. Obnoxiously. Rudely.

For the next two hours, as he wallowed in his sorrows over his enlarged T-shirt, he proceeded to cry, scream, yell, stomp his feet, ignore his coaches, disrespect the other players and myself, disobey, and just about anything else that he knew would make matters worse. At some point, John decided to add fuel to the fire by yelling out (loudly) if Matthew didn't shape up, Mom was going to "beat him up" when we got home. I must have turned 10 shades of red as I felt 72 eyes staring me down. The two moms sitting next to me are heavily involved in the Christian school their kids attend. They are probably on bended knee right now, praying for my salvation and my poor children. I'm thinking we shouldn't just find a new league next year; at this point, we should probably just pack it up and move.

Two "trips to the car" and one extremely angry mother later, the game mercifully ended and I gathered up what was left of my shredded self esteem and my enraged preschooler and headed home. Most of the video I managed to shoot is on the other camcorder, but I captured this little blurb on my Flip Camera for your viewing pleasure. Matt's not hard to spot. He's the one lagging behind, throwing the tantrum.