Volleyball

Ainsleigh was in third grade the first year that she decided she wanted to play Volleyball. She had never been interested in any other sports besides taking swimming lessons and tumbling. I have always encouraged my girls to play sports but they were never interested. So when Ainsleigh said she wanted to play Volleyball, I was all for it. 

At that time in our lives money was pretty tight and I had a lot of Mommy guilt about not being able to give my talented girls all the opportunities I wanted them to have. I was very thankful that, at the time, we lived in a community where there were opportunities like this that were affordable. 

The coach was one of Ainsleigh's classmates Mothers. She did a great job and right away I appreciated that she fostered a very positive, encouraging environment with a focus on teamwork. So far, that seems to be the trend in all of Ainsleigh's teams and when she started playing again this year, it came naturally for her and  I loved seeing her telling her teammates good job, and giving them thumbs up even when they made a mistake. It's awesome to witness these parts of my kids' personalities when they are in new experiences like this.

Here is Ainsleigh when she started in third grade:

Ainsleigh in 4th grade; the year she started rocking the knee socks!

We moved to Georgia in the middle of 4th Grade so we missed out on 5th grade volleyball. But this year I noticed that our YMCA partnered with Cobb Atlanta Volleyball for a Fall and Winter session. I asked Ainsleigh if she wanted to do it and, of course, she absolutely did. No nerves, no fear, no "I might be stepping outside of my comfort zone" type fears that I would have had going back into a sport after time off. Just "Yep! Let's do it." I love that about this girl. She doesn't really get intimidated by other people's expectations. Just her own expectations of herself.

She was assigned to the Falcons team for Fall session. They all played very well together. Only lost one game all season! They made it to the finals and the championship games were all on one day. We were hoping they would at least win the first game but they went on to win the whole thing! It was so much fun. 

Here they are high-fiving after taking the first round.

Her team was so great. They really started cheering each other on during the championship and I think it intimidated the other teams. That alone helped them win I'm sure!

Her Championship medal up close:

We were starving afterwards and told Ainsleigh she could pick the restaurant as part of celebrating her win. She picked Golden Corral. Tim and I have no idea where that choice came from. We are not really buffet folks, but the girls love the dessert bar so they were in heaven. 

Right away, she turned her focus to the Winter session. She was given the opportunity to either stay in the regular league or try out for the advanced, White league and she wanted to try out for White league. 

Now don't get me wrong, Ainsleigh is great at Volleyball. She is focused, willing to work hard and definitely gets the game. But she is small in comparison to the other girls. In fact this team was 5th and 6th graders and she was one of the oldest on the team, but definitely the smallest. As much as I want it to be a non-issue, sometimes it does affect her. She has to do overhand serves this time around and, although she is getting stronger, she doesn't have all the power of some of the other girls and sometimes she struggles. I was honestly a little bit nervous that it would come into play during try outs and so was she. I really didn't want to see her disappointed if she didn't make the team. My girl is a perfectionist and I knew she would have been hard on herself. We have been practicing a lot and I wanted to see her hard work pay off so we gave it a go. I figured if she made it or even if she didn't, it would be a good experience.

So you can imagine our joy when we got this email:

Tonight she has her first practice as part of the Eagles on the White league. It is a competitive league so I know it will be more of a challenge than the last session. She's still having fun and hopefully, if my perfectionist daughter learns anything from this experience, it will be that she doesn't have to be perfect all the time. Sometimes she can just have fun.