Long day yesterday.
It started with the kids arguing about who gets to watch what cartoon. Followed by a trip to the vet for dog number 2. He’s touch excitable about these things, and whines incessantly. The silver lining is that he exhausts himself and eventually calms down and takes on the appearance of a respectable member of the canine species at that point. Until then, my ears hurt.
I finished up the log splitting. Naturally, it didn’t happen without a little extra effort on my part. I had filled the splitter with the last of the gas and knew it would be close whether I could finish everything. It finally gave out with about 15 logs to go. Of those, the majority were smallish logs that could easily be split with an axe. There was only 1 that I would’ve preferred to split on the splitter. Oh well. The end got a little comical because I was basically flinging pieces of log to the side in an effort to get as many on the splitter as possible.
When I’d finished, I had a nasty little zinger between my shoulder blades. A hot shower helped a little, but T-ball would not wait. The kids had decided to take naps so we had to wake them up. The boy isn’t too bad to wake up from a nap. The lass is a different story. Takes after someone in the family. Can’t mention who….
Anyway, T-ball practice turned out to be short, sweet and to-the-point. We arrived early so we practiced catching. It was at this point, with the audience I mean, that the boy decided to show off his pitching arm. Who knew? I’d never seen him try to throw the ball hard before. He still hasn’t learned how to throw the ball properly yet, but he’s on the upper end of the curve when compared to his teammates. I was surprised. One of his teammates was so bad I actually gave him a quick lesson in how-to-throw-a-ball. To his credit, he actually picked up the major points (step, turn hips, head up) quickly. Still, let’s just say he’s got work to do.
The coach then started “practice.” Run around the base paths, calling out the bases, make sure to touch each one. Then show them the defensive positions on the field. After showing them, to reinforce it, he would call out a position and the kids en mass would run to a spot. Luckily, one of them seemed to have it down so they all followed him from spot to spot. Finally, some batting practice. Each kid got a chance to get 3 hits. On the third hit, they ran the base path. Remarkably, they seemed to remember the base paths. The fielding was … suspect. Basically, it consisted of half the defense converging on the ball in a mad scramble to be “The One.” At least they had enthusiasm. None of them got hurt either.
By that point, a few more minutes of running to defensive positions finished off the evening. All the kids had fun and it looked like most of the parents enjoyed themselves as well.
Opening day is Saturday, complete with ceremonies, a homerun thingy and games. Stay tuned…