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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Herding Cats and Pre-Schooler T-Ball

Birth Days
Click here for the Happy Birth Days Carnival. I am extending the carnival through the weekend meaning that I will do the drawing on Monday evening. You are more than welcome though to add your story to Mr. Linky after Monday. And, since several of you have asked, you don't have to enter a new post to be eligible for the drawing. You can link to your birth story, no matter when you may have posted it on your blog.

First of all, I would like to say a big happy birthday to the Big Giraffe! Yes, today is the day to celebrate the Big Giraffe. He's been out of town for the past few days and it is only fitting that he came home today so that he could be around his sleep deprived children and wife celebrate with his family.

Because he's been gone, I had the misfortune honor to attend parent/child t-ball with my older son (OS). This is particularly ironic since I hate playing sports with balls. Why on earth would I want to play a sport where a ball may be thrown at my head when I could just as easily do something like swimming even if it is sometimes in a wetsuit? It doesn't help that I have still not recovered from when a kickball hit me smack in the face during second grade gym class and split my glasses frame in half. (Yes, I have physically recovered since then, just not emotionally.) And kickball was my best sport. If you knew how I played soccer, you would not be surprised that my second grade teacher had to talk my gym teacher out of failing me that year.

OS and I arrived at t-ball. First the coach, who was about 19, had the parents and all the "dudes," as he called the kids, practice rolling and throwing a wiffle ball. Easy enough. The Big Giraffe, who is a leftie, had given me specific instructions about how to help OS, who is also a leftie. In deference to the Big Giraffe's concern, I took vigorous notes including illustrations and watched a video of lefties in t-ball alerted the coach to the fact that OS is a "southpaw."

After a couple more warm up exercises during which OS argued that his name was OS not Dude, and some of the kids wandered off, it was time for the kids to take turn hitting the ball off the "T" and running to first base. We parents had an extremely important job: stand there and catch any balls. Since about 99% of the balls dribbled less than 2 feet away from the "T," we all stood there snickering at the coach who had to keep sprinting off of the imaginary pitcher's mound to field. This was my favorite part of the evening, not just because it was easy, but because it was hilarious. I wasn't really laughing at the coach's fielding. I was laughing at his efforts to get 4 year olds to run the bases. It was like watching someone try to herd cats.

After hitting the ball, each child might or might not run to first base. Some kids ran to third, some kids stayed behind the "T," and some kids just ran off in another direction. The kids on the bases were each supposed to advance one base. Most of them moved in some direction. Sometimes three children would be standing on one base. Some children would stop to pick grass or to just gaze around them. Every time OS approached the "T" a chorus of parents reminded the coach that he was a leftie. OS apparently was more concerned with working on fielding than baserunning. Whenever he hit the ball, he would run after it, retrieve it, and throw it back to the coach before heading out to first. Many times the child's who's turn it was not at the front of the line where he was supposed to be.

I have to give the coach credit. No matter how sweaty and exhausted he looked, he stayed calm with the dudes. As I was leaving, one mom said that the next time she was going to be the parent participant and her husband could be on child duty since all we did was stand there. She looked pretty sweaty and tired herself. She had been chasing after her other kids the whole time.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Dudes love t-ball

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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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