The official indoctrination has begun!! (And I say official because it unofficially began in utero, for each one of our children.) Sophia's first Tball practice was Tuesday night. Now, before you harass me too much for forcing our interests upon our kid, maybe I should clarify that this was purely experimental. Sophia has just gotten to an age where she is really able and eligible to participate in all kinds of rec league programs. So after debating about it back and forth for several weeks, I went ahead and signed her up for summer Tball.
We're not really sure how summer baseball is ever going to work out for any of our kids, considering we seem to spend a large portion of our summers in various parts of the country, namely the Midwest. Sophia will miss almost 3 entire weeks of an 8 week program this summer. Good thing the rec leagues are fairly inexpensive!
Anyway, if you know my oldest daughter at all, you are probably thinking we are crazy at this point. The girl has a one track baby brain. Any other form of play is purely a temporary sidetrack from babies. Tball, for clarification, does not involve babies in any way, shape or form. Did I have a brain injury at the time I enrolled her?
Well, if you must know, my thought process went something like this. She is, after all, only 4. Who knows what she might find her long term passions to be? We're at experimental stage, folks. Let's try everything and see what she's drawn to. (And hopefully, along the way, find some way to distract her from babies during her teenage years!) And in a baseball loving family, where else do you start but Tball?
So, we did our homework. We hyped it up the very best we knew how before it actually began. We bought tennis shoes that she is THRILLED to wear (pretty sure she hasn't taken them off for the last 3 days. One day she'll learn that you don't buy tennis shoes at Walmart, but as of now, she has not learned that fashion rule). She is SO excited to wear her tennis shoes for Tball, too, because "you can do that, Mommy. They're good for Tball, too. Tennis and Tball both start with T so you can do that!"
And off the whole family went for Sophia's first Tball practice.
Maybe this would be a good time to explain that Noah does everything with Sophia. The two are absolutely inseparable (most of the time). Noah, somewhat unlike Sophia, loves baseball. As we were leaving, it was Noah who had to put on his "baseball socks." (The first pair were black. Tim managed to convince him that they were actually church socks. The next pair? White with airplanes. How they constitute baseball socks, I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with the fact that they are not all white.) And of course, the ensemble isn't complete without his "baseball shoes"- Crocs with a baseball Jibbitz.
Did I mention that the only Tball program I found was for Pre-K's? That is, kids who will be 5 by October. Uh-oh. Do you see the problem here? Noah is less than thrilled with this "minor" detail. But I think he gets the fact that he's not quite old enough yet. Never-the-less, I will NOT be in such a hurry to get there on time next time that I forget to bring a ball for him to play with along the sidelines. How on earth did I let that happen?
Sophia's Tball debut was less than stunning. Now, I know she needs some work on her mechanics. I'm not THAT kind of mom that is totally blind to my kids' inabilities. But it was a still a reality check. Let's just say that there are 9 players on the team who are probably better than Sophia. (It's a 10 kid team.) So Tball might not be my kid's calling. Not this kid, anyway.
I shouldn't be totally surprised by this reality, but it has forced me to redefine success for Sophia's first (last?) Tball season. She threw me for a loop when she told me that she had a lot of fun and really liked it. She's actually really excited to go back next time. Really, what more could I have asked for?
**If I really get my act in gear, I'll remember to bring my camera next time to document the hilarity.
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