Kate's doing a gymnastics camp this week, so I'm spending a little more time with Jack. He has typically done a baseball camp this time of year, but we figured, let's let him take a break.
The first couple of days of the week weren't anything special; back from vacation, we had stuff that had to get done. Work, haircuts, mowing lawns, catching up on XBox and Instagram. But today? This was a Jack day.
First, we hauled out the batting tee, the net, the balls and his bat. We hadn't done anything baseball related for almost two weeks -- since his last game, really -- and it was a little rough. It was also about 90 degrees out, but whatever.
We start by him hitting off the tee into the net to get his swing down. Then I soft toss him balls from the side and he drills them into the net. Finally I pitch to him, not baseballs but soft, stress-type balls and a couple of dryer balls, much to Emily's dismay. Anyway, the pitching part started out poorly. Lot of swing and misses, lot of fouls behind him. Some of my pitches were bad, some his timing was off, whatever. He started to get frustrated. I said, Hey, this is why we practice. We're out of the routine and need to get back into it. No worries. (Because, you know, Fall Ball!)
Anyway, he was obviously getting tired, and hot, and frustrated. I asked him if he wanted to stop, he shook his head. Gradually it got better, and he started rocketing them onto the deck and off the side of the house. Ok, he said, we can stop now.
We each guzzled a Gatorade and drove to the comic store in Stamford. Hadn't been in a long while. They also had Baseball cards, which was his main interest. He ended up getting a Jacob DeGromm (Met star) and Max Scherzer with a piece of his game-worn jersey. Yeah, they're doing some crazy things with limited edition cards these days. Anyway, he was happy.
On the way home we saw these dinosaur sculptures scattered through the town. Something Stamford does, themed artwork that changes each year or so. "Cool!" Said Jack, as we saw each new one. Me too.
We went home and grilled hotdogs for lunch, Jack read a comic I bought for Kate. Then we scooped up a friend of Kate's on our way to get Kate and go to the pool. Tried to get one of Jack's, too, but almost everyone goes on vacation this week. I guess I will have to play with you at the pool, Jack, I said. "Yay!"
You probably aren't aware just how many pool games there are that involve throwing a soft fabric ball around the water. I certainly wasn't. We played The Skipping Game, Catch, Pepper, Diving, One Hand, and several others. When we weren't doing that, I threw the ball for him to dive in off the side of the pool to catch it, the more spectacular the better. Occasionally we took breaks, hanging out by the side of the pool and talking about NFL players / fantasy football and baseball. And did you know his card had a piece of Max Scherzer's jersey in it?
You will be glad to know we kept an eye on the girls, which wasn't hard since they went down the slide about a billion times. And hung out in the shallow end playing on kick boards. And traded goggles, and hair ties, and made each other laugh. And swam some too. At one point I sent Jack over to play with them or toss the ball to them. He came back shortly. "They just splashed me and sent me away," he said. Ok then.
End of the day, we came home and had dinner. While Kate showed Emily something upstairs, Jack and I threw the football around the back yard. On the 5th try we nailed our most difficult route, called Shed, with a perfect throw and catch. Ok, we agreed, we're done here.
Putting him to bed, I said, Hey Jack, I had a really fun day with you. I realized that really, we hadn't done that in a while, spent a day together doing stuff. He said, "Yeah, we played baseball...went to the comic store...the pool...had hotdogs...we even played football!" Pretty sure he went to bed smiling. Me too.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Rainy Day
Our first full day at the Cape was a little cool. We settled in by making a trip to the bookstore, getting a rental bike, having a huge lunch. Our second day was hot and we spent the entire day at the beach, with the kids making friends and finding hermit crabs and swimming out on their boogie boards and playing whiffle ball. Swim, rinse, repeat.
Day 3 was set to be rainy. What would we do? Well...
- I came downstairs to find the kids playing pyramid solitaire. I had taught them the game the previous day and they took to it. I thought about bringing out clock solitaire, but even as a kid I knew that game was kind of unfair...you could only win if the King happened to be in one exact spot.
- We went on a long bike ride. The rain hadn't started, so we clambered on and hit the bike trail. Sometimes Emilyand Jack went ahead, sometimes Jack and I did. Kate was quicker to tire or get frustrated, and there were a few moments I thought we would have to turn back. (We were headed to a pond, Sheep Pond -- perhaps it was shaped like a sheep? -- that was a few miles away.) Kate would protest, then get a second wind and peddle fast, then tire. But she made it, thanks largely to an interlude when a guy on horseback showed up and let us meet his very friendly horse. It snuffled at Kate and made us laugh. And it was named Jack! We ultimately reached the pond and took off our shoes and socks and waded in. Then it started raining, eventually quite hard, and we booked it back to the rental. And made it. Soaked but happy.
- We had lunch at home, peanut butter for the kids and chowder that a restaurant from the previous night had given us as it closed up. We find ourselves eating later meals this year, a sign our kids are getting older than many other Cape vacationers. Restaurants aren't as crowded and are closing up. It was great. The rain picked up in intensity outside.
- I taught Jack combat solitaire, which is classic solitaire where you play on each other's Aces and race to beat the others to cards. It was the major family staple of my childhood, an all the time thing, and Jack took to it. We came out at the end of our second game, and I explained to Jack he had to beat me to cards. He got happily flustered as we raced to play Jacks and Queens and Kings. "I didn't know it was this intense!" He said, laughing, frantically playing cards. It was just like I remembered it being and totally awesome. Kate asked me to teach her today.
- We went swimming at the indoor pool. It was crowded, of course, and some kids including ours went outside. And swam in the pouring rain. Crazy! Kind of cold, so Emily stood in the jacuzzi as she supervised. That was warmer. I watched them play and Emily laugh at the insanity of it.
- We ate dinner in, our classic Cape meal of pasta with cream and peas and scallops. Fantastic as it is every year.
- I put Kate to bed and read her book, The Princess in Black. Quite good, even though she wouldn't let me do funny voices. Whenever I tried she protested gaily: "Daddy!" So I stopped. Until the next time.
It was still raining when everyone went to bed.
Day 3 was set to be rainy. What would we do? Well...
- I came downstairs to find the kids playing pyramid solitaire. I had taught them the game the previous day and they took to it. I thought about bringing out clock solitaire, but even as a kid I knew that game was kind of unfair...you could only win if the King happened to be in one exact spot.
- We went on a long bike ride. The rain hadn't started, so we clambered on and hit the bike trail. Sometimes Emilyand Jack went ahead, sometimes Jack and I did. Kate was quicker to tire or get frustrated, and there were a few moments I thought we would have to turn back. (We were headed to a pond, Sheep Pond -- perhaps it was shaped like a sheep? -- that was a few miles away.) Kate would protest, then get a second wind and peddle fast, then tire. But she made it, thanks largely to an interlude when a guy on horseback showed up and let us meet his very friendly horse. It snuffled at Kate and made us laugh. And it was named Jack! We ultimately reached the pond and took off our shoes and socks and waded in. Then it started raining, eventually quite hard, and we booked it back to the rental. And made it. Soaked but happy.
- We had lunch at home, peanut butter for the kids and chowder that a restaurant from the previous night had given us as it closed up. We find ourselves eating later meals this year, a sign our kids are getting older than many other Cape vacationers. Restaurants aren't as crowded and are closing up. It was great. The rain picked up in intensity outside.
- I taught Jack combat solitaire, which is classic solitaire where you play on each other's Aces and race to beat the others to cards. It was the major family staple of my childhood, an all the time thing, and Jack took to it. We came out at the end of our second game, and I explained to Jack he had to beat me to cards. He got happily flustered as we raced to play Jacks and Queens and Kings. "I didn't know it was this intense!" He said, laughing, frantically playing cards. It was just like I remembered it being and totally awesome. Kate asked me to teach her today.
- We went swimming at the indoor pool. It was crowded, of course, and some kids including ours went outside. And swam in the pouring rain. Crazy! Kind of cold, so Emily stood in the jacuzzi as she supervised. That was warmer. I watched them play and Emily laugh at the insanity of it.
- We ate dinner in, our classic Cape meal of pasta with cream and peas and scallops. Fantastic as it is every year.
- I put Kate to bed and read her book, The Princess in Black. Quite good, even though she wouldn't let me do funny voices. Whenever I tried she protested gaily: "Daddy!" So I stopped. Until the next time.
It was still raining when everyone went to bed.
Thursday, August 06, 2015
Season's over
Baseball season ended last night. There were times this year when I was looking forward to it. We had a lot of road games, and running around trying to eat, pack up, get dressed, and drive there on time. Jack had an up and down season at the plate, and the second half of the year it was more down than up -- a few really good hits, which actually made the struggles even more difficult, trying to figure out and correct what was wrong in one at-bat that was so right in the previous one. Some fun games, and some that were just difficult.
But something felt right all day yesterday. We had a nice batting practice in the yard. We had a steak meal before the game, and I timed it well enough (finally!) that we were casually walking to the park in plenty of time, Kate zipping alongside on her scooter. The game started like a nightmare, with the other team scoring 6 in the first and 5 in the second; we were down 11-2 before Jack even got to the plate. Can the season just end already?
And then with 2 strikes in his first at-bat Jack lined a hard double to right field, part of a stretch of 7 hits in eight at-bats that made it 11-8. He stood on second base with a huge grin, pumping his fists, all the work in practices paying off in that moment. At which point I was feeling OK, thinking, what a comeback, what heart, I can be happy with a loss like this one. And then we made it 11-10 two innings later, and I started thinking about a walk-off win. Jack grounded out his two other times up, but he made contact and was oh so close to beating one of them out, so I was thinking, cool, we can end this way.
Except we tied it up, fell behind 13-11 in the final inning, then won it with a 2-run homer and solo walk-off shot in the final inning. I hope I never forget kids circling the bases smiling and laughing; for two of them, it was their first career homers (and just our 3rd and 4th all season). After the walk-off, players and coaches mobbed the kid at home plate, one of Jack's best friends since kindergarten. He (and his Dad, and everyone else) said "Happy Birthday!" to me, cause it was my birthday. (The pregame cheer, instead of "Go Pirates!" was "Coach Andy!" Brings a tear to your eye.)
Giddily they spilled out into the outfield for the postgame meeting, happy as they'd been all year (the coaches, happier). Then There were cupcakes for my birthday and a trip to Wild Wings for a celebration with the kids, while parents and coaches just stood around beaming. The likely song of summer "Cheerleader" came on and the kids sang along, and Jack asked for another dollar to play another one. Happy kids, happy time.
And then everyone went home to enjoy and Like pictures, and talk about what we'd just witnessed/experienced. And then the season was over, and it truly was bittersweet. Because the highs are high and the lows are low, but it's something you don't forget either way, and for the most part you don't want to. You hope the great moments, when they come, will be there tomorrow and next year and forever.
But something felt right all day yesterday. We had a nice batting practice in the yard. We had a steak meal before the game, and I timed it well enough (finally!) that we were casually walking to the park in plenty of time, Kate zipping alongside on her scooter. The game started like a nightmare, with the other team scoring 6 in the first and 5 in the second; we were down 11-2 before Jack even got to the plate. Can the season just end already?
And then with 2 strikes in his first at-bat Jack lined a hard double to right field, part of a stretch of 7 hits in eight at-bats that made it 11-8. He stood on second base with a huge grin, pumping his fists, all the work in practices paying off in that moment. At which point I was feeling OK, thinking, what a comeback, what heart, I can be happy with a loss like this one. And then we made it 11-10 two innings later, and I started thinking about a walk-off win. Jack grounded out his two other times up, but he made contact and was oh so close to beating one of them out, so I was thinking, cool, we can end this way.
Except we tied it up, fell behind 13-11 in the final inning, then won it with a 2-run homer and solo walk-off shot in the final inning. I hope I never forget kids circling the bases smiling and laughing; for two of them, it was their first career homers (and just our 3rd and 4th all season). After the walk-off, players and coaches mobbed the kid at home plate, one of Jack's best friends since kindergarten. He (and his Dad, and everyone else) said "Happy Birthday!" to me, cause it was my birthday. (The pregame cheer, instead of "Go Pirates!" was "Coach Andy!" Brings a tear to your eye.)
Giddily they spilled out into the outfield for the postgame meeting, happy as they'd been all year (the coaches, happier). Then There were cupcakes for my birthday and a trip to Wild Wings for a celebration with the kids, while parents and coaches just stood around beaming. The likely song of summer "Cheerleader" came on and the kids sang along, and Jack asked for another dollar to play another one. Happy kids, happy time.
And then everyone went home to enjoy and Like pictures, and talk about what we'd just witnessed/experienced. And then the season was over, and it truly was bittersweet. Because the highs are high and the lows are low, but it's something you don't forget either way, and for the most part you don't want to. You hope the great moments, when they come, will be there tomorrow and next year and forever.
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