Centerfield

Did you know that t-ball is played using a wiffle ball? It's not what I expected but perhaps I don't know what I expected. Did I think they used an actual baseball or softball or that there was some special "t" ball? Maybe there is, but it looks like a wiffle ball to me.
This coming Saturday is the final day of t-ball. It went surprisingly fast, unlike soccer which seems to drag on for several decades instead of six short weeks. Maybe because we had two rain days and one day canceled due to graduation set up.
T-ball was a less traumatic experience for C than soccer. There was no crying and so far he has participated in the games in as much as a four-year old can participate in a baseball game. Since the start of the season the players may have even figured the game out a bit. The first week, when a ball was hit, every player would run to grab it regardless of whether they were up at bat or playing the outfield. Every player except the child who'd hit the ball that is. That player would stand frozen at home plate until Coach Steve called out: "Run to first base!" There the player would remain until well into the next play when Coach Steve would have to yell "Run to second base!" while simultaneously telling the next hitter to: "Run to first base!" Eventually us moms caught on and took over responsibility for telling our own individual players what base they should be on and pointing out where that base was located.
I wasn't going to sign my son up for t-ball given that we also signed him up for tennis, but I succumbed at the last minute because some of his friends from preschool where going to be there and I didn't want him to be left out. I didn't sign him up for the gardening class that meets at Coonamessett, however, because we do plenty of gardening on our own, albeit without all the cute accessories they have in the class. Plus we go to Coonamessett all the time already. Plus there wasn't enough time to drop him off, go home and do anything useful and come back. I'd have just ended up staying out there and spending money. Now I'm worried that we'll be out there and he'll see the class (everyone I've talked to is signed their kid up) and wonder why he's not participating as well. There's a lot of guilt involved in parenting.
I spent less money on picture day at least. I didn't get the group photo. In retrospect though, the group photo may have been the better photo to have. We'll always have plenty of individual pictures of him and his brother around the house. We might not have any of Deason, Cassidy, Maggie, Paul, and that cute little girl with the curly pig tails he was talking to on the pitcher's mound last week. He had his baseball hat stuffed under his over-sized team shirt and was telling her he was "having a baby." She was going right along with it and not pointing out the obvious. They both let the ball roll right past them.

song: Centerfield • artist: John Fogerty