Opening Day

Well, Monday marked a big day for our household (and believe me, I have way more catching up to do that I'm skipping for the time being, but will get back to after this...). Why, it was opening day for tee ball season. And thankfully, I only found out it was opening day a couple of hours before practice was to start. Otherwise, I think it may have been the loooooongest day of my life. "Is it time for tee ball yet" "I'm so excited for teeeee ballllllll." "I better go check and see what time it is" "Mom, is it 6:30 yet?" "What should I wear for tee ball tonight?" "I better get my lucky bat. Oh no, I don't have a lucky bat." "Are you guys just going to drop me off and go home and watch me on TV?" (he was a little disappointed to learn that no, tee ball games are not televised) "will you cheer for me?"
So, finally the blessed hour arrived and we were on our way (literally five minutes up the street) and the chattering continued. "I'm so excited. I think I want to be a baseball player when I grow up. And a pilot. And a driver of a train. And an ice skater who skates around and hits that checker on the ice with a stick (We figured out that he was talking about hockey...)." Such ambition, such excitement, surely he was just going to knock them dead, right?
Well, for starters, it was nothing but a ZOO when we got there. Chaos at its finest...then finally they told all the kids to line up and throw to the person across from them. Then things got really entertaining. I mean, can a 4 year old really catch a ball that is thrown to them by another 4 year old? In case you didn't know, the answer is no. They may have a slight chance of catching it when an adult is throwing it to them very carefully, but when a fellow 4 year old is throwing--not even close!

(in the pictures, keep in mind that Tyler's "partner" was the boy in the blue shorts and the white tanktop...and take note of where he is and where he is usually looking in the pictures. Pretty much par for the course!)

So, the balls whizzed by time and time again. The drill went like this...one boy would throw, the other boy would realize that the ball had sailed somewhere off in the distance and go running to retrieve it, and then he would run back and throw it back to the other boy...and then the process repeats itself.
And repeating that process and having approximately 4,002 other kids around you doing the same thing can mean that a 4 year old quickly loses any concentration he may have had. Let's just say there were several kids off in la-la land...mine included. My favorite moment of the night was when Tyler had retrieved a ball, was running over to throw it back to his partner, and he passed by Garrett and said "Dad, maybe after this, we can go home and play a quick game of Wii." Clearly, his mind was not "in the game"!!!

And let's just say, Sam had a terrible time being the younger brother that night. He was dying to go out there and play "ba ba ba", but I"m pretty sure he would have died in the line of fire.
So, we took our sweaty baseball player (have I mentioned that it's blazing hot and humid here already? well, it is) and grabbed a bite to eat after his big opening day debut. While we were eating, I asked him what he thought of tee ball practice and he said "I didn't even get to hit and I didn't even catch one ball". And then I asked him if he had fun and he gave me a definite "YES". So, really, that is definitely all that matters. And he's even had one more practice this week, one more night solely consisting of throwing the ball, and he still remains excited about it. Surely they'll let him hit sometime soon, right? And I'm just hoping I can hack it being a fan in this heat.