Baseball officially started this week. I think I am a good sports mom and am happy to sacrifice a lot of time and energy so my kids can play and I love watching them, but baseball is testing my limits. Their coaches are so great and so passionate about baseball — they just happen to love it a lot more than I do.
Thank God they are on the same team or I would have gone crazy by now. They’ve been practicing 2 nights a week since Halloween and one of the practices is at a field 20+ minutes from our house. Not a big deal if you live in LA, but on our little island that is way outside my normal desired driving radius. Then on top of that, I got the game schedule and after arranging my life around practices on Tuesday and Friday I get the game schedule and find out that the games (24 of them, all against the same team since there are only 2 teams in the league) are on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Say what now? I don’t do 4 nights a week of baseball. Especially since those details were not revealed before we signed up. So right now we’re doing Saturday games (since I planned on Saturday games) and they don’t do games on Wednesday nights because that is when we have our family Bible study group. I hate that they can’t fulfill their commitment since I’m big on supporting your team, not doing something 1/2 way, and finishing what you start, but we were committed to our Wednesday night group first.
Don’t let the sunny sky fool you, look at Josh and Caleb in the background. Bundled up and heads down against the wind. The season opened with freezing temperatures.
Hot coffee and blankets weren’t enough to keep us warm
Caleb coming back from the car with extra jackets
She ran around until her cheeks and nose got pink — I put her in two jackets for game 2.
Carter generally plays right field. I always played right field, but I would stand way, way, way back and pray that no one hit the ball my way.
Calvin plays pitcher and first base. His favorite position is catcher, but they have 2 kids who can catch and Calvin is more versatile.
By the 4th inning Carter had put his sweatshirt on under his jersey. As the sun went down it only got windier and colder. Carter said it was “horrible standing out there doing nothing.” (Reason #324 why basketball and soccer are better sports.)
Playing first. In the second game (also horribly cold) Calvin got a solo double play on first by catching a line drive and then tagging out the runner on first who couldn’t get back in time.
Baby, you can’t be tired yet. It’s only the second inning.
Calvin warming up to pitch. The Sluggers lost by so many that they should have called it after 4 innings (instead of 6), but they decided to play another 2 innings for the full two hours.
This is my “I’m trying to be a good sport, but I can’t feel my feet so please put me out of my misery” look.
Tomorrow we have a double header. Yikes. (Reason #37 why basketball and soccer are more awesome).