Basketball - Reina Edition

How Reina feels about basketball can be summed up in one facial expression:   

For the record, I gave her the option to play this year and when it was time to sign up, she said "yes please!"  So I signed her up.  The kid is fast and she has good hand/eye coordination.  However, she doesn't like touching the ball, having the ball touch her, be jostled by other players and most of all, getting hit in the face by either the ball or the players.  With that said, she willingly goes to practice and listens to the coach and runs up and down the court.  

Standing in line during warm-ups.  Soooo boring. 

Hey look, she's touching the ball!  Of her own free will! 

Hey look, she's holding the ball! 

Her first game was Friday night.  She's one of two girls on her team and while the players are dressed like basketball players, there's a basketball involved and even a referee, there are baskets at each end of the court, and there's a whistle every now and then, any resemblance to actual basketball ends there.  It is chaos.  Adorable chaos, but chaos nonetheless.  At any moment, there's at least one kid crying, someone else is dribbling towards the wrong basket, several kids are piled on each other trying to get the basketball and parents and coaches are shouting out suggestions.  I'd planned on taking a bunch of in-game photos but frankly I was giggling too much and I also volunteered to sit on the bench with the players who were taking a break in the hopes of keeping them actually involved in the game.   We usually ended up talking about movies and speculating about the snacks after the game but at least I kept them on the bench.  The next game is Friday night and I can't wait!