Little Fielder, originally uploaded by cheryl.
Heaven help us, we appear to have a second child interested in baseball.
It started with Connor watching his older cousin Austin playing, of course. And now it's turned into Xander watching big brother Connor playing.
The twins still hate to watch Connor's practices and games. Mostly that's because they're constrained in the double stroller still (for our sanity's sake). Last week at Connor's first official practice of Spring baseball, Xander actually said something that sound eerily like, "Baseball, please!" at one point.
I assumed he was saying he wanted a ball to toss around, too. He loves to toss things up into the air and watch them fall, after all, so it seemed a natural assumption. And perhaps I also didn't want to acknowledge the statement's possible truth. Could he really mean he wants to play baseball, too?
Fast forward to last night. The boys and I spent most of the afternoon in the back yard after school. There was swinging, and a little frisbee tossing, followed by a make-shift baseball practice for Connor.
Or so I thought.
When I brought out the tee, the bat and ball, and the gloves, not one, but two little boys came running. Connor and Xander both wanted to play. I convinced Xander to field with me so Connor could bat first. The little guy actually put on Connor's glove (most likely a wrong-handed glove, as Xander is a true lefty and Connor is only a lefty when he bats), and went to it. He wanted me to stop the ball for him some of the time, but then he held out his glove and wanted me to toss it to him. Then he ran across the yard to put it back on the tee for Connor, before coming back out to join me in the field. He seemed to enjoy chasing after the ball.
Eventually, much to Connor's displeasure, we traded places. It was Xander's turn to bat.
The kid isn't bad. He started out on the right, but it was a really awkward hold on the bat for him, so I turned him around to the left. And that's where he stayed, finding his spot and sending the ball sailing across the yard. He pulled that one eye open, one eye closed trick, lining up the bat and ball on a practice swing (made me think of a golfer) and then took a real, hard swing in the exact right spot.
Nearly every single time.
Like most kids, he wants to stand right on top of the tee. I worked with him on standing further back, so he could swing all the way through and that's when the ball really started flying. He grinned and jumped up and down every time he hit it.
As I said, heaven help us.
Can you imagine trying to fit in not one but two different baseball schedules into our lives? Connor has two games and two practices this week alone (some of them make-ups from last week's rains, and likely to be rescheduled again if the weather forecast is accurate at all).
Because I can't imagine it, not right now.
For now, we'll keep inviting him to the back yard game, to gauge his true interest and his ability to follow instructions. And then we might have to look into some options. At the very least, we might have to get him the right kind of glove.
So it begins ... again ...