Not a good day…

Today is June 8th. I suppose, since the date shows so wonderfully in this blog, that is rather obvious.

14 years ago, I gave birth to my oldest daughters. Today also would have been my uncle’s 59th birthday. My daughters didn’t survive their premature birth, and my uncle didn’t survive his 30s. I always spend every June 8th, since 1992, wondering why, on both counts.

I also wonder, wherever they are now, if they are celebrating their shared birthdays together.

Care did a picture of “Heaven” for me sometime last fall. In her vision of heaven, my uncle stands watching my grandfather teach my twins to play catch, while my grandmother bakes cookies and serves one to my other uncle, who is close by in his wheelchair. All of the various animals are running here and there, doing their thing too.

Happy Birthday – Brittany, Lori and Uncle Butch. Love you.

Take me out to the ballgame!

And since Minor Ball started after I last posted, here’s an update.

CareBear is playing again this year. Rhi is doing really well, and emotionally handling the letdowns (strike outs and out-at-firsts) much better.

The team in entirety is amazing. They’ve lost only one league game, and that was the very first of the year. The girls have wiped the diamonds since then, except for a tournament where the teams are slightly more advanced and the pitching is faster. Not that that one pitcher was any good – she kept hitting our girls. Ok, mostly Rhi and Care. Mostly Rhi. But she “took it for the team” as she put it, and some of those hits would have had me bawling. That’s my girl; chin up, temper in check and ready to face the next pitch.

The last tournament they played in was this past Saturday, and they won every game. All three, and by quite a gap in the scores too.

It amazes me how utterly disrespectful some coaches are. In league play, there has been one extremely arrogant and hostile outburst from a pair of opposing coaches, and the parents. The ump made a good call on their team, and it was one he’d called on our girls too. It was a fair call – and not only that – those damn coaches had made sure he’d called it on us! When this went on for several minutes, one of our coaches went over and told the ump to give it to them. That’s when one of their parents said the team didn’t need the charity. What is that teaching those girls, who stood right there, listening???

Frankly, that is pathetic. At least have the decency to teach the team you coach some sportsmanship and lose gracefully. I mean, come on; the girls won’t learn it if you don’t show it. Take a look at our coaches, ladies. They may be guys, but out of all the coaches I’ve watched in the last two years – they’re the best in this league. Our girls have compassion, team spirit and don’t rub their wins in the faces of those that have lost. And they take their losses as a learning experience, and a way to practice good sportsmanship.

As a final thought, here’s something for ya’ll to think about. At the last tournament, our girls sat and cheered on one of the teams they’d played and won, during that team’s final game. Who was the opposing team? One of the teams where the coaches and the players fought against ump calls and showed bad sportsmanship in their loss. The team our girls cheered for enjoyed themselves, you could see that…they weren’t just there to “beat the other team”. They were there to play.

And after all, isn’t that what it’s all about?

Slap!

No, I didn’t slap the kid…get yer head outta that space!

Bean (Rhi’s nickname) and I were sitting in the orthopedic surgeon’s office the other day, waiting for him to come back in and discuss her Xrays with us. So, we’re bored and we started doing a whole poke thing we have going once in a while. She poked me, I poked her -vicious cycle.

Finally, I tried to gross her out by pointing out the diagrams of the “skinned man” – you know, the musculature poster some docs have. Anyway, she didn’t fall for that, because they have “bony man” at school. *sigh* I start checking around for a magazine or book or something when suddenly she pipes up.

“2006 is gonna go by fast Mom. It’s gonna go by like 2005. It’s gonna go by like a slap to the back of the head!”

Needless to say, we both broke out in giggles. I don’t know where she got that, other than we occasionally joke about “Smack upside the head”…yes, we’re weird. She tells me she’s always wanted to say that.

So, we settle down and continue on waiting. Suddenly, my head shoots forward and there’s this slight, tingling sensation at the back of it.

She’d slapped the back of my head.

“Just like that Mom!”

Apparently, she’s always wanted to do THAT too.

*sigh*

I can’t wait until she gets her knee braces. Then she’ll get back to doing kid things again and leave me out of her range of silliness. I hope.. *worries*

Help?!?