Coffee Break with Liz and Kate

Perhaps you can tell from my sunburned cheeks and my wind-blown, pony-tailed hair.  Perhaps you can tell from the sunflower seeds spilled in the bottom of my purse,  or maybe it’s the empty gatorade bottles strewn throughout my car.  Or it could be the fast food bags and boxes filling up my trash cans.  Maybe it’s  the sound of my washer and dryer humming away at odd hours of the night  in futile  attempts at removing red dirt stains out of stains white baseball pants.  You see, it’s state baseball tournament time, and I am a baseball mom.  Not of a high school baseball player, mind you, but of a cute little nine year old second baseman. And for the past few weeks baseball has taken over our lives.

 

You see, my son plays for a fairly average baseball team (coached by my husband)…they aren’t the best and they aren’t the worst.  They sit very comfortably in the middle of the league rankings, a league which has 25 teams, each  made up of around 13 players.  That’s a grand total of about 325 boys his age playing on the city teams.  (That doesn’t even count the boys on the traveling accelerated teams…gonna keep my opinion to myself on that one.)  They’ve racked up more wins than losses, and most importantly they’ve had fun.

So the end of the season rolls around, and the top 8 teams are automatically selected to go to the state tournament, and then through a series of city games, 2 more teams are chosen.  My son’s team was sitting right on the cusp of being one of those 2 teams.   It all came down to the last game…if we won, it was off to state and more baseball, stretching clear into the middle of July.  If we lost, it was a fun and good season with lots of happy memories.

Here is where I have to make a confession.

First let me say, I feel like I am a good mom.  I try my best to support all of my kids in their sporting events, dance recitals, rock band concerts, and other hobbies.  I have seven kids…that makes me a very busy mom.  And I love it, I truly do, but as I sat at that last city game, I found myself torn between hoping for my son’s team to do their best, and  secretly thinking of how nice it would be to just be done with the season.  I wasn’t actually hoping for a loss, but I also wasn’t praying for a win either.  I mean it is summer after all, time to relax, vacation and take a break from schedules.  If we won, it would mean weeks more of practice and games.

Well, we did win that last city game, we did have 2 weeks of practice, and we did go to the state tournament.   It’s the middle of summer and we are eating, sleeping and breathing baseball.   No time to cook or clean the house.  No time to watch my fav TV shows all recorded and waiting for me.  No time to go to the pool.  Double-headers every day. On the plus side, it’s kind of nice to have an actual reason for falling behind on the chores…you know, instead of having to come up with excuses on my own.   Hee hee.  In fact, we now find ourselves entering the last day of tournament play.  There are only 4 teams left!  Who would have thought?  Certainly not us.  And let me tell you, this state tournament is serious business and not for the faint of heart.  In the last few days I’ve seen screaming coaches, angry moms, yelling dads, and crying players.   Really folks???  These are nine -year-old kids playing a game and having fun…at least our team is anyway.  We’re just happy to be there, and are surprised to find ourselves still in the running to be the champs.   We may not be the most skilled team with the most aggressive coaches, but we are having a blast.

I’m cheering for the team, truly I am…but here’s the thing, what if we actually by some miraculous fluke win this thing? I’ve heard rumors that the winner moves on to some other sort of tournament…Geez!

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

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