how I learned

     I received some comments from my last post about how nice it was for me to enjoy the same things the boys are interested in.  Let's go back about 15 years.  Hurricane was old enough to start t-ball and some friends of ours were signing up their son.  Ex and I were still married way back when and I was pregnant with B.  Ex wanted no part of signing up a kid for sports.  He had way more important things to do with his time.  But H was really interested in trying this and the fields were close to the house - across the street so I went to register him.  As I'm filling out the paperwork, it has all the stuff I'm used to like name, birthday, age, address and then I get to a section that says:

bats _______

hits________

   Well, I'm a little bit puzzled but I think well, as far as I know he can hit and bat so I put yes in both blanks.  Silly silly me.  They wanted to know if he was right or left handed.  And I had no idea.  So far I've come in those 15 years.  4 boys and 15 years of ball later, I know more about stats and baseball than most people care to know.  I've done the score books for the boys for the last 5 years.  Another learning experience for mom when the coach handed me the books and asked me to keep them.  I had no idea what all those little boxes were for!  What I did find over the years was:  The more I knew about the game, the more I enjoyed it.  I started out watching my boys play and just enjoying watching THEM.  But now, I can appreciate exactly how hard they've had to work to do what they do.  I can say that B carried a 1.3 ERA (earned run average) while pitching and know what that means (that for every time he comes in to pitch you can expect him to give up 1.3 runs for the time that he's in-  for a started usually 4 innings so about 1 run for every 3 innings pitched).   I did find over the years that knowing what was going on made the game less "boring" than some of the other mom's found it.  

Little Man is a BIG Indianapolis Colts fan.  So, my next challenge will be to live thru another football season.  I suppose I'm going to have to learn about that next to make it thru Sunday football playing on my TV all fall.  At least they don't ask for the football channels.  I deal with MLB extra innings all spring, summer, and fall.  They only watch football if the Colts or the Cowboys are playing.  There are some things that should be a dad's responsibility to do with their sons.  Football and oil changes to name a few.  ;)  

2 weeks till school starts.  Jr High and High School registration this week to pick up schedules, pictures, etc.  And LM starts his first job this week.  So many new things getting ready to happen in their lives.  

Enjoy!