So Long, Soccer Mom

Forget soccer--I am officially a "baseball mom." I have one child who thinks baseball is an awful lot of fun (Tyler), one child who loves it in a crazed, I-want-to-wear-my-baseball-helmet-to-bed kind of way (Sawyer), one child who is day-by-day beginning to see the value in baseball (Darcy) . . . and then there's Peyton. Let's just say I doubt she'll ever play sports, but she'll try out to be on the cheerleading squad!

When we had our first child and he turned out to be a boy, I'm sure Randy immediately began planning and scheming for the future. Randy loves sports and played a number of them himself "back in the day," so it's natural that he's steering our kids in that direction as well. But he instituted one hard and fast rule right around the time Tyler would have been eligible for T-ball, and that was, "No way!" Specifically, no "organized" sports of any kind until Tyler turned eight years old. Randy's reasoning was that we were going to have plenty of years ahead of us where family would sort of take a back seat to the needs of an individual within the family once sports were part of the picture, so we needed to take advantage of all the family time we could.

Well, those days of "All Family, All the Time" are gone. Don't get me wrong--since we homeschool, I'm still with my kids every hour of every day, but we are now in that season of life where we're going and doing often based on our kids' schedules. I am a big fan of the "one child in an activity at a time" rule but have already had to break it; when I signed the girls up for their most recent gymnastics rotation I did not yet have Tyler's baseball schedule, so I was chapped to realize that Monday baseball games and gymnastics classes would overlap. Grrrrr.

But back to baseball . . . forget for a moment that we're at the ballpark twice a week for Tyler's games plus an occasional practice thrown in for good measure; forget that I take him an hour early to get in extra pitching practice. Aside from all that, I've got a three-year-old who eats, sleeps and breathes baseball! I spend a good 30-45 minutes at a time, 2-3 times a day pitching to this kid. He cannot get enough of baseball! His bat, helmet and glove are always at the ready, and as soon as the first person heads outside for the day, he is nipping at their heels: "Wanna play baseball?!"

To me, the funniest part is that once he dons his batting helmet, he becomes "Tyler." "Call me Tyler, Mommy." And heaven forbid I should slip and call him Sawyer: "My name is Tyler." Talk about being in the zone! As soon as the helmet comes off all make-believe ends, but buddy, let me tell you, as long as he's batting, he is his big brother!

Last week he was really on a roll. Can you picture a three-year-old giving his ten-year-old brother advice on how best to hit the ball? I hope you can, because that's exactly what was happening, right down to showing him the correct stance, how to swing the bat, the whole nine yards! I know we would be crazy to get Sawyer into "the system" until the appointed time that we have set for our kids, but honestly, I don't know how I'm going to break it to him next season when he doesn't go along to sign-ups with Tyler. He is going to be crushed! Our backyard is already becoming too small, and he is in danger of breaking a window with the power swing he's got going on! Barry Bonds, look out!