Passion

I have made it pretty clear in the past that of all the sports and activities my children have tried or engaged in, baseball? Not number one on my list.

Truth be told, I just have a really hard time getting super worked up about children's sports, and baseball parents -- in general -- tend to be a little hardcore. At least, the baseball parents in my neck of the woods. I am sure part of it is that my kids are not, so far, athletic prodigies. And, you know, neither was I. Husband was an athlete, but he didn't get serious about his sport until middle school. So, at this point, I see athletics as great for conditioning and burning off ya-yas, but I'm not counting on college scholarships here. Secretly, I might be hoping we can snatch a scholarship for chess or violin. That would thrill my nerdy heart.

Firstborn is playing his third season of baseball now. After our disastrous first season when he was five, I tried to distract him with any host of other activities, but we came back to baseball last spring and had a better season. This year, he's playing in the same pretty crazy-intense league, but he's in the B league for his age group and he's one of the oldest in his division, so he's finally kind of a big man on campus. Keeping in mind that he is turning nine this summer and he's tall for his age, picture that one of his teammates is five years old, in Kindergarten, and is the same size as my three-year-old. Firstborn is finally the supahstar he has always believed he is.

The thing is, Firstborn is not naturally talented in baseball. He looks like a foal out there in the field -- all legs and knees and limbs akimbo. He has a decently strong arm, but his accuracy is sketchy, in part because those legs never set -- they just wobble. Sometimes he hits really well; other games, he can't hit the nose on his face. He doesn't always make the best decision about what to do with a ball he has successfully fielded. But baseball is the first and only thing we have ever found that Firstborn will work on, happily, whenever he is asked. He never flinches about practices or games, and heaven knows there are plenty of both. He is always up for a game of catch or a trip to a batting cage.

He loves baseball.

And so here we are, knee deep in practices and games and oh my God, how does one successfully wash white baseball pants? HOW? We spend hours at the elementary school field, the littler ones running around messing with the school garden (oops) and picking weeds, my seasonal allergies having a field day -- literally -- with my sinuses. We sit in the metal bleachers for hours at games, eating hamburgers grilled at the ballpark for dinner followed by Ring Pop chasers, chasing after wayward three-year-olds, hoping that we will get home before 8:00 PM.

I want to support Firstborn's dream. It's killing me, for several reasons, among them bedtimes and siblings who like to run right where foul balls might whack them dead. But after years of trying to skirt it, I am finally realizing that until he tells us otherwise, this is his dream. It makes him happy. Better get used to it. The look on his face when he brought me the game ball from the first game this season -- his name etched into it with the date -- sealed my fate. It's not what I would choose, but the past almost nine years have given me something of an education on not getting my way. I'm starting to mature myself and let my kids be the people they are, both when it thrills me (Firstborn made trading cards for the Greek gods this week! Swoon!) and when it doesn't (two games and a practice in the span of five days).

Now, the almost-seven-year-old is saying he wants to try baseball. Over my dead body. Well, maybe.