The Little League teams had a round robin tournament today that started at 8am. C. had to be there at 7:30. Maybe I'm just bitching to hear myself but I don't think any kid should have to be anywhere at 7:30am on a Saturday morning. He played four games throughout the day and practiced the times inbetween. All told, he played over 13 hours of baseball today. His team finished second in the tournament so he is now the proud owner of a shiny baseball medal. The kids were so much fun to watch. One of his teammates accidentally caught a pop fly. You could tell it was accidental by the look on his face. A hundred parents were screaming "Throw it to first!!" because the first base runner had headed for second and was running back to his base. This kid was so incredibly shocked that all he could do was stand there, arm still extended towards the sky, ball still firmly in his glove. When they gave out the medals he came running over to me and said "I actually caught a ball today!!" Too funny. C. was explaining game two to Todd. He said "At one point, we were down 17 to 2 but we came back and beat 'em 8 to 5." Yes, that's my kid. (the same one who finished the year with a 98% in math. Go figure.)
Some of the parents were not funny at all. Several times I had to restrain myself from loudly reminding folks that this was a game. A little kid's game even. I saw parents stand up and scream bloody murder at their kid. Stuff like "What in the hell were you thinking??" Well duh. Let's see... we have a field full of 6 to 8 year olds. They're playing ball. They like to play ball. Yes, it's a real game but it's only their second real game this year. Oh yeah, it's a game played by 6 to 8 year olds. If fourteen adults stand up and scream "Throw it home!" "Throw it to second!" "Get it to the pitcher!" what's a little kid gonna do?? That's right... freeze like a deer in headlights. When fourteen adults scream "What were you thinking??" what's a kid gonna do? Some cry. Some throw up. I saw a little of both today and it disgusted me. Sometimes we adults just take the fun out of everything.
Thanks Deb for bringing Stand for Children to my attention. I have a big ol' rant in my mind about children, particularly those who were born to people who have them just for the sake of having them, but my DSL is still down. Dialup connections are just not conducive to healthy ranting : )
I would like to put my own little creative spin on this if you'll humor me for a moment. I'd like to take today to thank people who go out of their way to make a difference in a childs life. For instance:
My friend Jolene, who spends a little extra time helping the Little League players who need it the most.
Dan and Shelley for taking their parenting duties very seriously and applying their love and generosity to the neighborhood children as well.
Alwin because he shuts off his computer specifically to spend time with his girls.
Candi for loving her nephew to pieces and setting a great example for him.
Everyone else who spends more time than they have to with a child, be it their own or someone elses.
It's incredibly easy to have children but taking on the job of actually raising them, and taking that job seriously, is very difficult.
Geesh... it's a good thing I side stepped that rant idea. It's taken me almost an hour to compose this little blurb and I'm not sure it makes a damn bit of sense.
Our DSL has been down all day. It seems that they did some maintenance on our loop overnight and somehow, we were completely dropped. According to the last phone call I received, it will be at least morning before they get it fixed. Of course this has to happen when I've got a deadline of tomorrow for going live with a promo for work. Thank God I have co-workers who can pick up the ball if necessary.
In other news, a baby woodpecker was sitting in the middle of the road tonight. So many babies have been squished in the road already this spring. Christopher caught it and brought it up to the front steps. I thought this one was particularly cute and wanted to hold it. C. had been holding it without any problem but as soon as I took it, it went into full woodpecker mode and pecked the ever lovin' out of my finger. Ouch! Let me tell ya, they are born with a very sharp beak. This house has an amazing array of birds. Hummingbirds, cardinals, robins, bluejays, woodpeckers, starlings, goldfinches, mourning doves, barn swallows... even a canadian goose flies around periodically.
I think I'll let Todd have his turn with the dialup connection while I work on something offline. If there are typos or misspellings, they'll just have to wait 'til tomorrow to be fixed : )
Who needs a spelling/grammar checker with friends like Dan around? I count on Todd to find my errors but he's so enamored (Dan?? spelling??) with me that he's blind to my mistakes. hehehe
Speaking of Dan, he's got the coolest lanterns in his garden. I need to get outside and take a picture of our landscape lights. We bought them right after we bought the house and thought we'd found a great deal. Wouldn't ya know, Menards had an even bigger set for the same money in their ad this week. Oh well... I think we get bonus points for shopping locally and not going 70 miles away to save some money.
In all seriousness, you can rarely find what you need locally but if you do, it's pretty easy to get it replaced, exchanged, serviced or whatever. I bought a push mower from our local Coast to Coast merchant a few summers ago. In it's second summer of use, it quit running. I called the guy who sold it to me and he came right over, loaded it up and brought it back an hour later. All fixed and no charge. That's worth the $50 I could have saved by driving 70 miles.
Todd is finally back home. He was only gone two days but it felt like two weeks. He claims he missed me but I am betting he actually enjoyed the time away. I can be a real pain in the butt sometimes and I know I'd like to take a day or two break from myself. That would require setting up multiple personalities and I don't have the time or resources to invest in that type of venture.
I am sooo much nicer than Eric. I gently warn you about believing everything virus related that comes into your inbox. He refers to you as an idiot. Eric, you have *got* to learn to play nice with others.
For those of us who use Windows... a virusy-hoaxy thingy. Before you let anyone convince you to remove a system file (or any other for that matter), please check Symantec.
I haven't looked in my archives to be sure, but I'm thinking I did this last year. New baby! Sometimes people just flat out suck but animals are always great... especially baby ones.
I've been fighting back a bad mood all day and it's winning. I'm just glad I held it off until Todd's kids were back home. Some things just make me so damn mad that the anger wells up inside like carbonated soda that's been shook up. Today is one of those days... all I can do at this point is hope no one unscrews the lid. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... I think I'll go work in the yard and maybe that will dissipate some of this negative energy.
