Baseball

Today was the opening Saturday of the baseball season, with Jack playing at 9 and Kate playing at 11:30. Just last night, and indeed when we woke up this morning and it was raining, we didn't think it would happen. But the rain stopped, the tarp came off the field, and Jack and I headed over at 8:45 for his 9:30 game. On the way we saw a bunny on a neighbor's side lawn. We stopped and watched it for a few minutes.

Jack's game was against A team coached and well represented by his travel team coaches. Didn't expect to win, but in fact it was very competitive, with us trailing 7-4 entering the final inning. Jack hit the ball pretty well and was solid in the field, making a couple of plays at shortstop and playing a solid inning behind the plate. This was impressive because he was shakier in his first game, the previous night, and it was nice to see him step it up. Turned a nice putout with a school friend and nearly a great one with another teammate. We lost the game, but he and the team had every reason to feel proud of their effort. For my part, even though I at one point sent Jack into an out on the basepaths, it was nice to be coaching...in the summer, I mostly just kept score and assisted at practices.

It was like Jack himself said later, when I asked him if he was enjoying Minors. He said he was, enthusiastically; that, "you know, I had fun doing Summer Travel, but now I'm getting to DO more." (E.g., playing shortstop, leading off the batting order, etc.) On the travel team he wasn't one of the best players; now he is.

Kate's T Ball game was a nice little interlude, three innings of little kids knocking the ball off a tee, converging on it in the field, maybe throwing it to first. The games are kind of a hoot, but the kids had fun and most of the same coaches and friends from Jack's game were there -- one guy wore three different shirts while coaching three different teams in the space of four hours. Kate played with a smile on her face, which is about all you want to see.

Afterward we got lunch at the fields, chatted with other kids and parents from other teams, said hi to former players and teammates ("Hey weren't you my coach on Perrone Bros.?" Yup, hi Joseph). Just a really nice day.

For a couple hours or so, I talked to other coaches and watched other games. Jack played running bases, this baseballish game that all the kids play. Jack describing it later: "running bases is great because you never get tired of it. Until maybe after an hour, when you get bored. But then you take about half an hour off, and come back to it, and there are new catchers, and it's fun again."

We ate dinner out, watched Gilligan's Island, put the kids to bed early. Then I sat down to write about a great day of baseball.

Random stuff

- yesterday, while waiting for Jack to get back from a field trip, Kate walked into the classroom next door to his. She's friendly with the teacher, I think maybe partly because he used to have her cousins in his class. She spent the next 15 minutes creating art on his overhead projector/smart board/whatever thingy. Big smiles. The teacher didn't mind; Kate is very charming and cute. Loves teachers and they love her.

- picked up Jack from a play date at his friend's house today. I talked with the friend's Dad while Jack and the friend drew and Kate got the tour of the house from the younger brother, plus they all talked Skylanders. Nice family, pleasant time.

- Jack hadn't been swinging the bat well in practice, so a friend (and one of his summer coaches) said a e could come over and he'd give him some tips. So we did that for like an hour after dinner. The guy has four kids of his own and it was pretty cool he was willing to take some time to help Jack out. After the hitting session, Jack pitched a little off a makeshift mound he built recently. At the end he just messed around, using an exaggerated, Fernando Valenzuela delivery. Funny.

- Jack and I walked home and it was cold but pretty out. Kate and I read her Magic Kitten book before bed, the book she was allowed to take out as a second one because she couldn't choose between two series -- one she reads with Emily, one with me. So her teacher signed out the second one for her.

People are OK sometimes.

Spring Vacation, Day 4

The day began with an hour and a half worth of dentist appointments. This is the worlds best kids dentist office, since it has video games, a popcorn box shaped movie theatre showing "Frozen," and a life size suit of Iron Man armor. Anyway, the kids were great and I got some great selfies with Iron Man, and then we zipped home so Kate could go do gymnastics for 3 hours and I could host a couple of Kate's friends' brothers. It was 4 p.m. before it was just Jack and Kate again.

Kate and I played baseball in the yard. The girl can throw! She hit some too. Jack came out and we discovered he was a fiercer taskmaster than I was, giving Kate all the tips I give him...hmm, maybe I am a fierce taskmaster. Anyway. We had fun, and then I took Jack to his two-hour baseball practice. And I am really tired now, so, good night.

Spring Vacation, Day 3

A play date plan fell through, so I pulled out a Plan B. We hopped in the car and went to the Science Museum and Planetarium in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I remembered going there with Jack a few years back and not being overly impressed, but I wanted to try something different from staples like the Aquarium or Stepping Stones which frankly we've kind of worn out over the years.

And it was awesome. The kids were fascinated by the microscope and magnetic exhibits, thrilled by the energy show where the teacher showed us experiments with flame, liquid nitrogen, and electricity. When she asked for possible answers to "what would happen if..." Both Jack and Kate raised their hands enthusiastically. After Kate gave her answer, she smiled at me proudly. When the racquetball immersed in liquid nitrogen no longer bounced but shattered on the floor with a bang,,Jack turned to look at me with a huge,,wide-eyed grin. Yes, science is pretty cool.

We took in the planetarium show about the moon, shot hoops at the basketball exhibit, used solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy to move things. It was really a pretty great couple of hours, in part perhaps because my expectations were kind of low going in.

We literally closed the place down; they had to kick us out at 5. We walked back to the car talking about all the different things we'd seen and done. It's funny; we've been watching the show Cosmos on TV, so I thought of this place because of the Planetarium. And that was probably the least interesting part of the trip; it was the more traditional science exhibits they most enjoyed. Anyway, good day.

Spring Vacation, Day 2

Rained all day,,so good thing we went outside a lot yesterday. Got some work done in the morning, while the kids had another stuffed animal rodeo, made birthday cards for cousins and Babas, and built things with long forgotten construction toys. Jack made some kind of great bird/TRex character. Kate made a birdhouse thing.

Afternoon we ran errands. Orthodontist for Jack. Library for both; Kate got a bunch of Rainbow Fairy books, Jack got a variety of different books that I'm sure he will fly through. Kate finished one of hers this afternoon. Voracious readers, it's nice.

Went to the grocery store and post office, came home to read, make a fire (cold and rainy out), and watched a couple of Gilligan's Islands. Basically all the humor involving Ginger goes well over their heads, which is fortunate.

At dinner I made Jack laugh by theorizing an Easter Bunny that threw eggs at people, conking them in the head. This totally cracked him up, which I don't often do; very satisfying. Ate cake for dessert and watched Cosmos, which I have to say kind of went over Emily's and my heads but Jack termed one of his favorites. OK then.

Put Kate to bed, reading one of her kitten books. She sang me a song about the little black bug that was pretty cute. We listened to the rain as she fell asleep.

Spring Vacation, Day 1

It's Spring Break, so I'm going to try to blog every day. Today was a good day. Weather indicated this would be the nicest day of the week, so I knew the plan would be to be outside.

First thing in the morning, I had both kids make a list of everything they wanted to do this week. They collaborated on it, which was nice; no need to read "McDonald's" and "Dunkin' Donuts" on multiple lists. Their list was pretty good, including the expected (TV) and unexpected (Easter projects). Looked good; I am sure we will end up doing many of them.

While I did some work, they played together quite nicely. This morning's game was "Stuffed Animal Rodeo," during which their various stuffed toys were timed riding on Zoomer, the battery-operated robot dog. No, I am not making this up. The monkey won. Of course.

Today we started at Bruce Park. It's a nice playground in Greenwich which we used to go to semi-regularly (when we lived in Connecticut) and I think have gone to every spring break since Jack started school. It's a tradition, and we like those around here. They immediately climbed the rock wall, and the climbing tower, and the hoopy thing -- I believe that is the official name -- and stuff that was difficult for Jack a year ago wasn't, and stuff that Kate couldn't do a year ago she did with effort. Stuff she didn't try then, she managed to do now. They had a blast on the swing chairs, and the slides, and the rock walls, smiling genuine proud,happy smiles for the camera.

When they tired of that, or couldn't put off their McDonald's craving any longer, we went there. We sat and ate their unhealthy food with lots of ketchup. Some little girl stood up and shouted instructions to her Dad across the restaurant. I evidently cringed because Kate looked at me and said, "She must have never been in a restaurant before!"

Jack had an afternoon play date at a friend's house,,so Kate and I took her bike out for a spin, which ended at yet another playground. Pushed her on the swing, helped her ride, watched her climb trees. Just a nice sunny afternoon.

Back at home, Emmy came back from work and we/they played baseball in the yard. Kate is working on her skills, Jack just likes to play. And that was our day.

Having a catch

So Jack's team got clobbered this evening, and Jack was pretty morose afterward. It was bad enough -- pretty much the worst pounding I'd ever seen -- that the game ended after 3 innings, and Jack got only one inning in the field and no at-bats.

We trudged home from the field and I (after telling Jack at the field to keep his cool) told Jack to go ahead and say anything he wanted to say. I said, you know, losses like that happen every once in a while.

And he said, exasperatedly, "It's not that we lost, it's that I didn't get to DO anything about it. I didn't bat, and I only played one inning!" And I said, yeah, well, it's tough, there are 15 kids on the team, and most of them are older than you, and we only played 3 innings, etc. And he continued: "And (friend who got yelled at by coach for goofing around on bench) doesn't even care! It's optional for him. And I actually DO care!"

So I told him I understood. And that we are going to have a great time in Minors this season (new season starting, as his Spring Travel season is ending), since the kids are all his age (true) and he's one of the best players on the team (also true). And he'd get to hit plenty, field plenty, and have some fun. Win or lose.

By this time we had reached home, and I said, Jack, you want to go play catch in the back yard? And to my relief, he nodded.

So we had a catch, and it only took a handful of throws before he was grinning again. Me too.

Artwork

I have a real fondness for the art the kids created when they were younger. Jack drew pictures of monkeys with big eyes, goofy grins and gangly fingers and toes, and his "Rainbow Man" -- pictures of happy people where every line was a different color -- still make me smile. Kate drew pictures of people that were basically big circles with stick figure arms and legs, with dots for eyes and noses and big smiles. She drew them over and over and labeled them "Mommy" "Daddy" "Jack" and "Kate," the females usually distinguishable from the males because they had a piece of hair over each ear, while the males had just one squiggly hair on top.

At one point she'd made four such pictures, one for each family member, and we framed them in four separate plastic frames and hung them together in the playroom. I probably walked by them every day without noticing them, until I noticed that while the kids were cleaning up and redesigning their house area yesterday, they'd removed three of the pictures in favor of different ones they'd made. Two I found scrunched up in the trash, the third was on the floor.

I brought the kids down to the playroom and gave them the riot act, about how the frames are ours and they're not supposed to touch them or change them, and that I was sad Kate's old pictures were damaged, because they gave me a lot of great memories. Both were sad and apologetic, genuinely, and I felt bad and all that.

After that I saw Kate going back and forth from one art area to another. Turned out she was trying to re-create the same pictures that had been crumpled, with the same-colored marker and her same choppy, charming style. She didn't quite get them, but it was pretty sweet.

Jack created a drawing of his own, a note that said "I'm Sorry!" and then this cartoon character he created recently, Marty Mushroom, making a joke about it.

I thanked Kate for her pictures and took them, but I later found her huddled in my desk chair crying. What's wrong, I asked. She was sad because I hadn't immediately put the pictures into the frames. I explained that I was trying to flatten out the original ones and use them again, which cheered her right up.

I get nostalgic, Kate is very sensitive, and Jack is kind of a mixture of both -- not quite as sensitive, but thoughtful and anxious to make amends, as is Kate. Basically they're both great kids. And, I think I'll need to get more frames soon.

Family TV

Today was our first nice day in a while, and we went to the playground. Kate rode her bike around the tennis court, did a good job riding, got frustrated when she couldn't start on her own, got excited when she got going. Jack met a friend and his brother and they played basketball, then all four of them played on the slide and the rings. Kate is a little monkey on the rings. On the slide, they did this treasure hunt game they invented where they went slowly down head first to collect wood chips. Silly but fun, clever.

But what I'm going to write about instead is family TV, because with all the rain and cold, there's been a decent amount of that lately. Whereas in the past we'd send them off to watch their kids shows, we've been doing more family things in evenings.

The first, which started at Disney, is Gilligan's Island. TV land has started airing them in blocks, and they've become our regular weekend evening viewing. They both love it, probably as much as I did as a kid, watching it with Robin, some, and Scott. I feel like we might have done skits, too, though I am not sure. I know we loved it, and I suspect I enjoy it now for both the humor and the nostalgia, and watching it as a family. Uh, I am not watching them on my own.

The second is Cosmos, a science series that's fascinating and incredible and lots of it is tough for even me to keep up with, so I am sure it loses Jack and Kate here and there. But Jack is fascinated and Kate is entertained, and so we snuggle up together on the couch and watch it with rapt attention.

It's weird, because I have always wanted to be careful that they don't watch too much TV, and I forgot how good it can be when it's, you know, good. We watch it and talk about it during, and after, and the next day, and look forward to the next one. Will Gilligan get off the island? Will we get off Planet Earth?

It's not the playground, but it's a lot of fun sometimes.