>Mudball!

>“Is this some kind of joke?” I asked my husband when we arrived at the soccer field for our Saturday morning game.

After weeks and weeks of rain, the entire field looked pretty much like this.

Any of you who have soccer playing kids know that when a ball hits a field this wet, it doesn’t move. It just sort of sits there in the water, while the soccer players futilely kick it a few inches here and there. That, along with the fact that playing a game on this field will destroy it, is why ordinarily, this game would have been canceled.

However, so many games had been canceled already this season that the league seemed to be spooked. Games were on. And parents weren’t happy about it.

The kids, though, seemed to have fun. And the fact that the ball doesn’t move in mud proved to be a good thing for Punky.

Girlfriend can run as fast as any other kid her age, but for some reason, the moment she gets on the soccer field, she just sort of stops. She’s totally not interested in the game itself; she’s only interested in playing with her teammates during breaks and practices.

In fact, the above photo was the only moment in the game that she actually touched the ball with her foot. She made a decent play here, turning it around and sending it to another player on our team. I am so glad I caught that moment and can now prove conclusively that my five-year-old did in fact PLAY SOCCER.

Meanwhile, the parents and younger siblings suffered on the muddy sidelines. Within a few minutes of starting whistle blow, Bruiser looked like this…

“Excuse me, your son has mud on his face!” parents kept telling me.

And frankly, I think the stains from this day will last a lifetime, too.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.