Full Count

Ball one. Outside.

It is a stressful evening, getting four kids ready to go out the door for our typical evening of sports. Dinner is on the table when they get home from school. Three of them play for travel ball teams, and they all have to be in different locations at 5:30 for games or practices.

Strike one. On the swing.

I drop one daughter to her coach’s house at 4:30. She has a 12U softball game at 6:00. The older daughter will get picked up by a teammate for her 14U softball practice, also at 6:00. I decide to go with my son for the emotional support he needs as starting pitcher on his baseball team.

Ball two. A little high.

My four-year-old looks frantically for all the little things she must have in her backpack. I question my son: Do you have your sports goggles? Water bottle? Athletic cup? Glove? Cleats? I double check the location of the game. We get out the door, carefully, making sure our big naughty puppy doesn’t get out with us.

Strike two. Looking.

In the car, I am feeling really stressed out. “Just a little more grace, Lord. I just need a little more grace to get through this evening.” Once I get to the game, I feel much better. I clear my head of where everybody else is, what has happened earlier, and what will happen later. My daughter finds other little girls to play with. My son goes to warm up. I say hello to the other parents.

Ball three. Inside. FULL COUNT.

We’re up one run, top of the sixth inning, and my son is on the mound. Three boys are in scoring position. The rest of the world disappears. My heart pounds. “Take your time, walk around,” I tell him.

Strike three. THE BATTER IS OUT.

The boys run out to the pitcher’s mound and pile on top of each other. In a ten-year-old boys’ world, a win is the happiest moment of his life. And for me, nothing else matters.

Grounders

I felt the pain when I tried to cut my daughter’s English muffin in half. As I brought my arm back to perform the cutting motion, the ache throbbed from my neck to the back of the upper arm.

Grounders.

How many grounders had I tossed during the live draft of the minors baseball division the previous day? Three to a boy, for about 90 boys…270. That could do it.

The most fun was when my own son came into the gym. I grinned wide.

“Watch, I’m gonna throw them really fast to him,” I said to his friend, who was catching the balls that the boys would throw back.

“Don’t throw it too hard!” his friend called across the gym to my son.

I threw the first one really hard, and bouncy, so he’d have to watch for the hop. Then one fast to the right, so he’d have to shuffle his feet and move to get it. The last one was fast to the left.

I threw them like that to all the boys that came out looking confidently athletic. Slow to the boys who seemed hesitant or undeveloped.

When they were all done, I drove my son home, took the temperatures of two daughters who were not feeling well, administered medicine, made sure my eldest daughter was ready to be picked up by her teammate for travel softball practice, grabbed a handful of almonds and a banana, and drove back to the high school to sign in the boys in the majors baseball division.

The inclusion of women in sports can only have a positive effect on society. Males admire athletic females; today they are not afraid to admit if one is stronger, faster, or more skilled in a sport. At the leadership level, they respect their input, organizational skills, and the “female intuition” they can bring to the table.

As a mother, getting involved in your child’s sports beyond the spectator level can be extremely rewarding for both you and your child. Your child knows that you share his passion; he learns more about you as he sees how you interact in a different sphere from home; and he may admire and respect you even more as you surprise him with what you can bring to his favorite sport.

“Because of the global dimensions this activity has assumed, those involved in sports throughout the world have a great responsibility. They are called to make sports an opportunity for meeting and dialogue, over and above every barrier of language, race or culture. Sports, in fact, can make an effective contribution to peaceful understanding between peoples and to establishing the new civilization of love.” – Pope John Paul II, Jubilee of Sports People, Homily, Oct. 10, 2000

I came across a terrific document, a special edition of “The Living Light” that includes several essays about “Sports as Religious Education”. You can download it here.

Statistics: Who Needs Them ?

"A passion for statistics is the earmark of a literate people." - Paul Fisher

My newest project is that of calculating statistics for the softball league and posting them to the sports website. When I got the first batch of numbers, I had to ask my husband what they all meant and he happily brought me our huge hardcopy of John Thorn’s “Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball” so that I could fully understand and appreciate the history behind the stats tables.

I got the first table up and went outside, hoping I had gotten it right. I’m one of those people who can’t sleep if a little detail is wrong. “What’s the big deal – it’s just a little girl’s game, right?” I imagined what someone might say if they knew how worked up I had gotten about getting it right. Then I remembered back to the statistics courses I had taken, and eventually student-taught, as part of my psychology degree. “Why do we have to know all this? Of what use are all these calculations?” students would constantly moan.

One of the basic calculations is that of the average. Average can statistically mean one of several things, and if you don’t know that you will walk through life letting the newspapers report to you whichever of those fits the news they want you to believe. It can mean “mode”, or the most recurring number or other value, as in: The average person has brown hair. It can mean “median”, or the number that falls right in the middle, as in: The average person lives in a $200,000 house. The only type of average that mathematically means anything is that of “mean”, which is the sum divided by the number of values, usually resulting in a decimal, as in: The average person has 2.2 kids and half a dog.

Statistics can be as accurate as you want them to be. My professor used to tease me because I always liked to carry my calculations to the third decimal. The decimals can go on and on as far as you want to take them.

Statistics are used to objectify information that is used for decision-making. How do we know who is the best teacher, best student, or best ball player? By their statistics. This takes out the human factor so that everyone can see a rational justification for someone being appointed for a position or an award. Statistics make things fair.

Statistics are used by scientists to study the world. Every experiment is analyzed by statistics to come up with scientific conclusions. Lots of experiments are repeated and meta-analyzed to further generalize a theory. Statistics help us to discover and understand about God’s creation.

Little kids playing baseball or softball can look at their numbers and know that they can improve them through practice. As they see their decimals increase in value they can have the satisfaction that comes with improving their game, just as a runner strives to decrease the time it takes to run a mile.

Statistics speak the truth and enlighten us towards wisdom – and all that testifies to the light comes from God.

Proverbs
Chapter 8 (NAB)
1
Does not Wisdom call, and Understanding raise her voice?
2
On the top of the heights along the road, at the crossroads she takes her stand;
3
By the gates at the approaches of the city, in the entryways she cries aloud:
4
"To you, O men, I call; my appeal is to the children of men.
5
You simple ones, gain resource, you fools, gain sense.
6
"Give heed! for noble things I speak; honesty opens my lips.
7
Yes, the truth my mouth recounts, but the wickedness my lips abhor.
8
Sincere are all the words of my mouth, no one of them is wily or crooked;
9
All of them are plain to the man of intelligence, and right to those who attain knowledge.
10
Receive my instruction in preference to silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold.
11
(For Wisdom is better than corals, and no choice possessions can compare with her.)
12
"I, Wisdom, dwell with experience, and judicious knowledge I attain.
13
(The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;) Pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth I hate.
14
Mine are counsel and advice; Mine is strength; I am understanding.
15
By me kings reign, and lawgivers establish justice;
16
By me princes govern, and nobles; all the rulers of earth.
17
"Those who love me I also love, and those who seek me find me.
18
With me are riches and honor, enduring wealth and prosperity.
19
My fruit is better than gold, yes, than pure gold, and my revenue than choice silver.
20
On the way of duty I walk, along the paths of justice,
21
Granting wealth to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.
22
"The LORD begot me, the first-born of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
23
From of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth.
24
When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains or springs of water;
25
Before the mountains were settled into place, before the hills, I was brought forth;
26
While as yet the earth and the fields were not made, nor the first clods of the world.
27
"When he established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
28
When he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
29
When he set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress his command;
30
Then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, Playing before him all the while,
31
playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the sons of men.
32
"So now, O children, listen to me;
33
instruction and wisdom do not reject! Happy the man who obeys me, and happy those who keep my ways,
34
Happy the man watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts;
35
For he who finds me finds life, and wins favor from the LORD;
36
But he who misses me harms himself; all who hate me love death."

Picture: Audrey at bat at a travel game Columbus Day Weekend 2009.

Is there baseball in Heaven?

Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven, 1419

“Do you think there will be baseball games in Heaven?” I asked my husband over dinner.

“I don’t know.”

”I’m just postulating. What do you think?”

“I thought Heaven was an unknown,” he answered.

I was thinking about my Poppop. My father-in-law said he would miss him because he was so much fun and always made people laugh. I wondered if he was making God laugh up there.

I pictured him with a whole bunch of guys around him, all laughing at his stories. His dog Penny would be there, of course, along with a whole bunch of other dogs, because he loved dogs and they loved him back.

Then I saw my daughter in her Marlins shirt and thought of how he liked to watch the Marlins play the Mets, because he lived in Florida but was born a New Yorker. That made me wonder if they watch our games from up there, and perhaps play their own.

There’s no crying in baseball, my husband always tells my son, and there are no tears in Heaven either. So maybe they do play. And both sides always win.

Hebrews
Chapter 12

1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us
2
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.

Forty-Three

Today we celebrated my husband’s forty-third birthday. On the schedule were the normal Saturday events. He went to my son’s baseball game and Ten’s softball game. I vacuumed the pool and went to Twelve’s softball game.

I had him take our toddler to Ten’s softball game, for the first time, while I got to sit and talk to the softball parents on Twelve’s team for the first time this season. When I stood up after two hours, I was all stiff; it was the first time I had sat that long in, like, forever.

“She was a pleasure! I don’t know what you always complain about,” my husband said about our toddler’s behavior. (Sure, I thought, she was just good because going to a game with Daddy was a novelty.)

I made dinner while he mowed the lawn. After dinner we had carrot cake and gave him his cards and presents.

We have known each other for about sixteen years now. It makes me think about the meaning of true love. When we are younger and starting out in dating, we often wonder when we’ll know when we’ve found the real thing.

I wonder if it’s something you don’t really know for sure until you are still together years down the road…

…and you see streaks of grey grow through each other’s hair…

…and you still remember what the other one looked like when you first met…

…but you wouldn’t have them be any other way…

…and you can’t imagine what life would be like without that person…

…and you look forward to those days when your hair is all silver and you can watch the sun set on your days together.

A Comedy of Errors

Final Test, The (Restrike Etching)

I have written about all the pre-planning that goes into the spring sports season, with three children playing softball and baseball in three different divisions, at three different locations, and a husband that works late.

Certain things I can have control over: commitments outside of sports, meal-planning, and my attitude, to a certain degree. I don’t have control over: the weather, the game schedule, and school assignments.

I know some mothers of multiple children who don’t seem to plan ahead for anything. Their lives seem to be in constant chaos as they realize they are supposed to be somewhere and then run around like chickens without their heads, trying to get everyone together. I really don’t know how I could live like that. That kind of disorder would make my brain explode, but I do have a special admiration for those who can pull it all together at the last minute, on a daily basis.

I have a color-coded dry-erase board which I consult religiously, and refer all questions to the board. “Don’t ask me about the schedule,” I scold, “I can’t possibly keep it all in my head. That’s what the board is for.”

All day Monday I felt like something was gripping my heart. I was so nervous about how I was going to really handle this season, now that it really was upon me. We have a triple header every Saturday starting this weekend, I explained to my husband. “I can help out with that,” he said calmly. “Yeah, but what about the weeknight games? So far I only have our daughters’ schedules and already there are 3 conflicts. What if I have 3 in one night? I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack,” I whined.

“Do you ever hear about women your age having heart attacks? You probably just pulled a muscle. You’re over-thinking – and over-feeling,” my husband cautioned.

“No, I’m planning ahead,” I argued, “That is how I manage to get a nutritious meal on the table every night at 4:00 and keep a certain degree of order around here.” Really I was just trying to make him feel bad about his schedule, which he cannot completely control either.

“Maybe we should take them out of sports, so you don’t have to deal with it,” he said, with his poker face.

“You know that’s not an option. They get too much out of it to not do it.”

It’s too bad I hadn’t had my voice of reason around earlier in the day to calm me down, but at least he brought my blood pressure down before I lay myself down to sleep.

Last week went okay, with a few laughable errors on my part. None of them really mattered in the long run, although I did feel that I looked foolish. I was just glad to have everyone home in one piece at the end of each night.

It was cold and drizzly all week, and practices were (thankfully) spaced so that each child was playing on a different night. Monday morning I picked up the telephone when the manager of my eldest daughter’s softball team called. My throat was filled with flem, the way it is every morning during allergy season. “Ribbit?” I answered the phone. “Um, hello?” “Ahem, ribbit, I mean hello?” I felt like I had to explain myself when I met her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t talk the other morning, I had really bad allergies, you must have thought I was dumb or something,” I blurted out. (“Did I just say dumb? Now I feel even dumber,” I thought to myself.) “No, I didn’t think that at all,” she said, kindly. (“Oh yeah, she’s just being nice, now she really thinks it,” I thought, and ran off to the playground with the other kids.)

The next day it was my son’s turn to practice. There were about a dozen teams playing on the field, with first-come-first-take being the policy for obtaining a field. I asked my daughter to help her brother find his team, and brought my other two daughters to the playground. About ten minutes later, she was back. “Did he find the right team?” I asked. “Well, the coach said, ‘Hey big guy’, and he said it was his team,” she answered. A few minutes later I ran into another mother from the team, whom I had met on Saturday morning. I pointed to where the boys were playing, “No, they’re over there,” she said, pointing in another direction. Upon close inspection, I saw that she was right. So I hiked across the fields, found my son, and interrupted practice to explain to the coach that this was not his player. “You’ve been traded early,” the coach joked, good-naturedly. Then I brought him to the right team, late for the second time. (We’d also been late on Saturday morning because he couldn’t find his glove, and he wound up showing up with a t-ball glove, which the coach rightly explained to me was not safe to use in baseball.)

No mishaps in my middle daughter’s softball practice. I had been 0-for-3 last week and wound up batting a thousand this Thursday night, the first night with scheduling conflicts that I had been worrying about on Monday. I dropped one off at 5:55, the other two at 6:00, went to get the first one at 7:15, and was back at the second field at 7:20 for the other two, just as practice was closing out. And all with a sick toddler in tow. Phew! I was so glad to have them all together in one spot again! We all consumed massive quantities of chocolate bunnies and chocolate pudding pie that night, with extra whipped cream.

One Not-So-Fine Easter Monday

Just when I think my day couldn’t get any worse, I get splashed in the face with stagnant pool water.

It was one of those really awful Mondays when all of one’s responsibilities seem to crash down on her at once. We came home to a messy house last night, and my allergies caused me to crash in bed early. So I woke up to an even messier house, as the children had finished up their breakfast with an Easter grass fight in the dining room. Laundry from the weekend was piled up by the garage. The kitchen floor was filthy.

I ran out to the store to buy science fair boards and found they came in two different sizes. I didn’t know which size to buy for my son, so I got one of each. The girls will reuse their boards from last year. We stopped at the library for research report books. This week we will complete three science fair projects, two book reports, and a musical report on Beethoven. So much for Easter vacation.

I open up my email and find the softball schedule for my second daughter. I compare it to the schedule for my first daughter and have the heart attack I had been preparing myself for all winter. And I didn’t even get my son’s baseball schedule yet.

I go to the mailbox – there is an Easter egg waiting for me, which the kids hadn’t found on Easter morning. I put it in my pocket, look up, and suddenly smile. There are yellow-and-violet hybrid cold-resistant pansies on my porch, where I had left them on Saturday, and planting them will make me very happy.

Once the toddler is in for a nap, I plant my pansies in the deck planters. While up on the pool deck, I decide to get one-up on the pool season and remove some leaves from the pool. I locate the pool leaf rake and start scooping. It is really hard work, and I am happy to be burning off the calories from the post-lunch chocolate splurge I had allowed myself.

My son is taking a break from scooping up dog-poo, hitting baseballs towards the woods. One of them lands in the pool, a few feet away from me, and I am covered from head to toe in filthy pool water.

That fit in with my day very well. I head to the head for an emergency shower. I am not a super-clean freak, but don’t like the idea of strange organisms in stagnant pool water sitting in my hair.

Once clean, it is time to heat up some leftovers for a quick dinner before softball practice. The coach announces a practice for Thursday, the same time as the practices already schedule for my other daughter and my son. The scheduling nightmare begins.

It is more difficult to get the kids to bed when there is no school in the morning, and I finally have them in their rooms by 10:00. I open up my email and there is a reminder from my friend that there are 40 days of Easter, 40 days to celebrate, to match the 40 days of Lent. I’ve started it all wrong, but (as Scarlett O’Hara loved to say) tomorrow is another day.

“He that is of a merry heart heath a continual feast.”
Proverbs 15:15

Painting: Christ Appearing to the Virgin, c. 1475, by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden

Dinner for Three Nights: Chicken Legs with Paprika

In anticipation of the first three nights of ball practice for three kids in different divisions, last night I made twenty oven stuffer chicken legs. We only ate seven, which means we can have leftovers on both Wed. and Thurs., with freshly made sides of pasta and vegetables.

Sprinkle chicken legs with salt, pepper, and Hungarian Sweet Paprika. Bake at 400 degrees for one hour.

Shown here with Barilla tri-color rotini, tossed with olive oil; and steamed string beans, also tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Menu Planning for After-School Sports

Seventh Inning Stretch

Baseball/softball season starts April 1, and with it comes a very rigid and simplified dinner schedule. I am fortunate to be home during the day, so if I am making a new dinner I start preparing it between 2:00 and 3:00. The kids get home at 3:00 and have to do their homework right away and then get dressed for the ball field. During the rest of the year, I make them go outside right away and do their homework later. But now they will have a few hours of fresh air and exercise to look forward to after dinner.

We eat at 4:00. My husband’s dish gets wrapped up for later. Those who are done with their homework can practice the piano in shifts. Practices and games are always at 6:00, but we have to be there at 5:30, and there usually is no bathroom available – which means we have to have thoroughly digested everything by 5:00!

Today I did my food shopping and planned out the rest of the week’s meals in my head. I got several packages of chicken legs, and will make as many today as I can fit in my oven! That means we can have leftovers on Wed. I also got a family pack of sausages, which are an easy entrée to make for Thurs., leaving enough leftovers for Sat. For Friday I got flounder fillets for the kids and stuffed flounder for me and Kevin.

We generally don’t get home until after 8:00, which during the rest of the year is the children’s official bedtime. They have a quick dessert and make the next day’s lunches while everyone takes turns in the showers – luckily I have two of those. I have everyone in bed by 9:00.

Even though there might be housework, such as a dirty floor and laundry, to do after 9:00, I leave it until the morning. Otherwise I will get all revved up and be unable to sleep. Evening hours are mine for writing, reading, and watching television with my husband.

Other self-imposed rules that keep me sane during this season:
* Big school projects MUST be completed on the weekend – I have no patience for last-minute rushes to meet deadlines.
* Social commitments are kept to a minimum.
* I try to get all errands done in the morning so the baby can get a good nap in.
* Sunday is an absolute day of rest and relaxation. After Church, the only plans we make are with extended family for afternoon dinners.

The Ink on the Calendar

Best Buddies

I grant myself two slow months in the year to catch my breath. During January and February, I was able to read two lengthy novels: Anna Karenina and Les Miserables. I was also able to write every day. In the coming months there will be days when I cannot even switch the computer on.

While friends suggest I purchase a laptop to write on the baseball field, I would rather not do that. I want to fully participate in the action of being present there. I see moms spending the whole game on the cell phone and wonder how their children must feel, that she is physically there but mentally absent?

Just when this slower schedule was starting to get boring, and I thought I might run out of things to write about, I wiped February off the dry-erase calendar and started putting up the schedule for March. My dry-erase marker quickly ran dry. I realized with dismay that my mini-break was over. Science fair projects for three kids (all due the same week), baseball games, softball games, practices, birthdays, and my son’s First Communion are all in my near future.

I both look forward to, and dread, the receipt of the game calendars for the spring season. This year the three children will be in different leagues, playing on different fields at the same time. When games fall on the same day, I sometimes feel like I am going to have a heart attack getting everyone where they have to be, hoping my husband can get to the second field on time before the game ends, leaving other parents to believe I’m the “absent parent” as I drop and run. And run and drop.

Just when I will have lots to write about, I won’t have the time! Now all of these are good things – I just wish they could be spread out a little more throughout the year.

And so, while the household chores pile up, I am allowing myself this half hour to write before the children get home from school. The dirt isn’t going anywhere, but ideas don’t sit in your head forever, and kids grow up even faster when you’re busy.

“In all wisdom and insight,
He has made known to us the mystery of his will
in accord with his favor that he set forth in him
As a plan for the fullness of times,
to sum up all things in Christ,
in heaven and on earth.”
Ephesians 1:8b-10

Why Big Families Tend To Be Late!

I never used to understand why large families seemed to always be late. Why didn’t they just aim for an earlier time as a cushion for little set-backs? How could they be so inconsiderate of other people’s time? Why were we just supposed to be patient and “understanding”?

Before I had my fourth child, I tended to be fifteen minutes early for everything. Now, we average two minutes late for Sunday Mass and mandatory school meetings, and a half-hour late for parties and family get-togethers. Why might this be?

Let us take the typical after-school activity. I have done all I could to make the evening flow smoothly. I have dinner on the table at 4:00; I have worked out with my husband when and where he is going to meet up with us so my children can be at different places at once; I have all the uniforms freshly laundered and laid out; the checks and order forms for team pictures have been prepared ahead of time. Yet we cannot seem to make it out the door and down the street on time.

This is a 62-minute play-by-play of my children getting ready to go to their ball games.

5:00 I warn the children we are leaving in 20 minutes. I get the baby ready and make sure everything we need is in the car.

5:20 I announce: Time to go! All three older kids still need to use the bathroom and put on their shoes.

5:22 My son runs out to the shed to get his baseball bag, which is already in the car.

5:24 The phone rings. It is the classmate of my almost-eleven-year-old. I tell her we are on our way out. Is it a homework-related emergency? Yes, she says. My daughter picks up. It turns out she just wanted to know what my daughter had written in her journal entry for tomorrow. I am quite annoyed.

5:26 Everyone is in the car. I back out and drive halfway down the street. In the rearview mirror, I notice my eldest does not have her softball hat. I turn around.

5:27 We dash through the house, looking for the hat. I remember she was not wearing it during the last inning last night, and probably left it on the field.

5:28 We are driving again.

5:32 We arrive at the field for Minors softball pictures. The coach has the hat. My eleven-year-old has been asked to fill in during a Majors game at 6:00. My nine-year-old wants to watch. I have already asked another trusted parent to keep them until my husband can get there.

5:37 I drive my son and toddler away from the field and realize I have left my pocketbook at home. I need my cell phone to keep in touch with my daughters and husband. We drive back home.

5:41 I pull into the driveway, run in, lock up, and run back out.

5:42 We are back on the road. I take back roads to avoid rush hour traffic but we still are late. I had already let the coach know we would be a few minutes late.

6:02 We arrive at my son’s baseball game. They are just getting started and he runs to join them.

Phew! Everybody has been gotten safely to their locations and I am just a little hot and bothered by my children’s inability to be ready on time. The evening goes smoothly from here.

Did you follow all that? THIS is why families with several children tend to always be a few minutes late!

Not-So-Perfect Moments in Bicycling and Softball

We had quite an ordeal this week but the crisis is now averted. My nine-year-old daughter had a bicycle accident on Saturday at around 3 pm. She was riding her bicycle in the backyard and fell after going over a tree root. She fell onto the bicycle handlebar, in the left lower abdominal area, and came in crying. We had her lay down and put ice on it for about an hour. After dinner, she vomited around 9 pm.

We decided to take her to the emergency room at our local Catholic hospital. They took a chest x-ray and put her on an i.v. for a cat-scan with contrast. The i.v. needle was uncomfortable but she was very brave. We watched some Peanuts and Winnie-the-Pooh videos. We had some good much-needed laughs, enjoying the videos together. She finally got into the cat-scan at around midnight. The doctor looked at the results right away and said it was just a contusion, to take ibuprofen, rest, and eat a mild diet until she is feeling better.

She has stayed home from school and has been lying down most of the past week, subsisting on ginger ale, bagels, and Cinnamon Life cereal. She is in good spirits and says it is feeling better but still hurts. There is no school Thurs. and Fri. in the Catholic schools here.

Tonight she was on the “injured list” and sat out for the softball game while her almost-eleven-year-old sister played. She had a really bad first inning pitching. The umpire had measured out 45 feet to the pitcher’s mound. Minors ball is supposed to have a 30-foot distance. She threw a slew of ground balls, and soon the bases were loaded with walkers. She was so embarrassed!

She came running to me after the inning and burst into tears. The other children and parents were quite sympathetic. After she went back to the dugout, I said, “It never hurts a kid to have a small dose of humility on occasion.”

The coach was very supportive and let her pitch the next two innings. She did better, but she was still disappointed.

Meanwhile, my toddler was all over the field. She explored several acres of property there, getting herself hurt several times. It was past her bedtime and I was ready to hit the hay myself.

I have had one minor miracle this ball season. Last year, about a third of the games for my son’s baseball league and my daughters’ softball league were at the same time. This put me in the position of having to be literally two places at the same time on weeknights. My husband is able to help out on Saturdays. This year I carefully compared schedules and was amazed to find I had not a single conflict during the week! I was so thankful!

My husband got home shortly after we did and I complained about his work schedule, threatening to never go to a game again. But I was just letting off steam, and I will be happily back in my camp chair (or running after the little one) in a few days.

Painting by Greg Fetler

Fun at Shea

“Meet the Mets,
Meet the Mets,
Step right up and greet the Mets;
Bring the kiddies,
Bring your wife,
Guaranteed to have the time of your life!”

It was a gorgeous day, and a fabulous day for Mets fans. In a crucial game, the Mets beat out the Marlins 13-0, scoring in every inning but the fourth, with an almost-no-hitter spoiled for John Maines by Hoover in the 8th inning. Other unusual events included an all-out-brawl on the field in the fifth inning, and Jose Reyes refusing to run on his hit in the third. (We just watched the game again on the Mets Network, to get a better understanding of what happened with the fight, which was precipitated by Garcia’s aggressive pitching.)

The scene was full of excitement for all the children, especially the baby. In order to get to our seats in the top row of the upper mezzanine, we had to go up several escalators. The height was dizzying, and we all felt a little giddy from our partial fright. Looking through the metal grid behind us, we could see the skyline of New York and the busy streets below.

Above us were perched pigeons, which kept the baby quite entertained. (“They get to see all the games without buying a ticket,” commented my eight-year-old.) At eye level in front of us, my son counted thirty-four planes landing. Also in the background was the site of the new Mets Stadium, which you can see being constructed in my picture above.

All the clapping, “w-a-v-ing”, chanting, and standing ovations were a thrill to participate in. The kids are excited about sharing their experience with their friends. And I knew my husband would be in a good mood, at least as long as their current success keeps up through the play-offs.

Today is Day Four in the 40 Days for Life Campaign.

A Tale of Two Trees

My little crawler squishes her toes in the lush green grass in the center of four baseball diamonds. I can see three of my children playing Rookie Ball, Long Ball, and Fast Ball, respectively, each on a different field. She points to a plane overhead. “Birrr”, she says, meaning “bird”. She looks down and spies a bumblebee flitting from one wildflower to another. Delighted, she takes off on all fours in pursuit of the bee. I let her get close, then at the last minute jump off my chair to rescue her from her own curiosity.

In His image God made us, and our feelings, attitudes, and actions toward our children imperfectly mirror those He has for us. He lays down rules to help us live fruitful lives – then hopes for our sakes that we will follow them. He sought to protect us from ourselves when he forbade Adam and Eve the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

But the choice was always ours. By creating us with free will, He showed us that He is a God of Undying Hopefulness. The odds of our sinning are against us – St. Paul seemed especially pessimistic on this point – but He wants us to choose the Good , just as we hope for our children.

“Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked,
Nor go the way of sinners,
Nor sit in company with scoffers.
Rather, the law of the Lord is their joy;
God’s law they study day and night.
They are like a tree
Planted near streams of water,
That yields its fruit in season;
Its leaves never wither;
Whatever they do prospers.”

Psalm 1:1-3

Pictured:
"Early Morning at Cold Spring"
Asher B. Durand, 1850