SRS Post #1 - What's summer without a little baseball!

Rewinding back to May, our first event of the summer was T-ball for Jack and Trey. So why is there not a "T" in this picture, you ask? Because in Battle Ground, folks, we don't mess around. It appears that the T-ball we grew up with is a thing of the past. To train our lads (and the one lassie on our team) to be "one-step ahead" competitive players of the future, the "T" is only used after four misses from the too-fast-for-my-comfort pitching machine. A little intimidating for a 5 year old, if you ask me. Jack was now a seasoned player coming back for his 2nd year, and this was Trey's first go at it. We were lucky enough to be placed on our neighbor's team with their two boys and their dad as the coach. Wait a minute, I guess lucky isn't the word when we sort of arranged it in the front yard one day (small town T-ball politics can get you far, I tell you). The grandparents requested a game schedule, so I sent out this email... I thought it summarized the upcoming season well: "Hi guys! Here is the T-ball schedule as promised. Thanking the Lord that he chose to bring Trey along when he did… makes for much easier scheduling when they share a team! Games are every Saturday from May 10 to June 28 from 9:00am until about 10:30am. Come ready to yell “Go White Sox!” with Chase. Hoping I don’t miss either of the last two games. I have it planned out that if I have the baby any day Sunday through Wednesday, I’m good. Having the boys on the same team made me a little nervous at first, but they’re having a blast together. This is after the lecture about “building each other up” and not “tearing down” if they’re partners and one of them doesn’t make a good throw/catch. Patience for imperfection seems to be missing a little more with brothers! So to overcompensate, Trey has been trying very hard to encourage Jack ALL practice long. He is constantly cheering for him and saying things like, 'That’s ok buddy, you’ll get it next time.' We get to hear Trey talk the ENTIRE practice nonstop (I get a lot of 'Hi Mom!' and thumbs-up from him too. As you can imagine, Jack is a bit more focused.). Hmmm…. I guess that’s better than the other, but now I’m not too sure that everyone else can handle listening to him! He’s really going to get into saying 'Hey batter batter' one of these days... And oh yeah, Chase cries the entire practice because 'I play, please Mama, I play with boys'. Can’t wait for games when the concession stand opens so I can feed him taffy to distract him."

In any event, we had a great season, mostly because it gave us an organized outdoor activity twice a week. One of the perks for me was that we got to visit with many of the families on our street at the fields on game day. We learned that Jack's strength is throwing and Trey's strength is hitting. We also learned that we're still not really sure if Trey, the lefty, throws better right or left-handed. Neither one is all that great - yet. We learned that if we had one more letter in our last name, that it wouldn't fit on the back of their shirts. The boys learned that you don't fight over the ball in the outfield, especially with one of your teammates. They also learned that you only get to pick one thing from the concession stand, and only on game day and only if you've shown sportsmanlike behavior. And everyone learned that Chase really, really likes taffy.