Play Ball!

I have not had a cigarette in 47 days.  I relapsed with the weighing thing last week.  I didn't write down when so I have to start again.  So I'll say today is day 5.

The most joyous thing about not having weighed myself for such a long time was nothing monumental, really.  It was those moments when I would realize I hadn't thought about myself in those terms for a few hours.  Maybe it was that I had been reading to the kids or putzing in the garden.  Hours would have gone by and I hadn't once thought about the way my body looked or how much it weighed. I was just involved in something other than thinking about myself.  

I'm convinced that the scale is just another way for me to stay disconnected from my fellow humans.  Smoking, too.  The benefits of not doing that are so numerous that it would take me 12 pages.  Suffice it to say that I can run the bases with the kids and not feel like passing out.

We've had 2 practices with the Aces T-Ball team.  The highlight so far was the other night when a new player, Kate, arrived.  She was carrying a pink bat and glove and she had lateral lisp.   Her level of self awareness was unbelievable for a 5 year old.  She told me she'd 'never really done this TBall thingy before' yet she was already clearly down on herself.

I heard myself say to her, 'honey, we don't get good at anything until we do it a lot. The problem is that it's not very fun until you get good. So we have to make it fun."  At that point, I recruited my wingman Hank The Tank Mason.  He's a great natural teacher and a wonderful assistant.  We got in the French doubles formation -- the two little people opposite me but next to each other -- and we started playing catch.   I told Henry to show her "The Alligator."  This is a maneuver I learned about on TBallU.com.  Where you toss the ball to the kids and they make their hands and arms into an alligator's mouth to catch the ball.

The cutest thing happened.  I tossed her the ball the first few times and she missed.  She got down on herself a little and I said, "now try it like Henry does with the gator's mouth."  Well she caught the next few with ease.  Each time her face lit up like a Christmas tree and frankly, so did Henry's.  He was so complimentary of her, too.  She said to me, "wow, when I did this at home, it never worked. Thanks Coach Molly. You're nithe.  You have a nithe name."  I started getting really choked up and then Henry finished me off by saying to her, "you know that's my Mom." Kate replied, "Really? She's so nithe."

So as not to get me too relaxed and happy with myself,  there was yesterday.  I almost couldn't stop yelling at the kids.  Our new babysitter started and they basically ran her out the door.  They called me on the phone while I was at Kroger to tell me that they were hitting her on the butt.  She's a very soft and sweet woman from Brazil.  She's about my age and she's used to a 4 yr old granddaughter and the triplet 1 yr old boys that she normally sits for.

When it was time for all of us to depart together, I did the Love and Logic thing where you tell the kids you're leaving, give them a few 'we leave in x minutes' and then walk out the door, get in the truck and start it up and start driving out the driveway.  I don't fuss about it, I just go.

This new babysitter hadn't read that book. She kept going back in the house for them. She was talking to them and saying 'come on let's go', 'you don't want to make Mommy wait.' etc.  I was like, seriously? You obviously haven't spent time with older kids, especially boys.  Anyway, it doesn't matter because I doubt she's ever coming back. 

Still, she's sweet.  And my kids are, well, my kids.  I'm still not very good at this parenting thing.  I just keep practicing in hopes that I get good enough to make it fun at least 15% of the time.

Today is our first actual T Ball game.  The team members can hit and run the bases but I haven't taught them about fielding yet.  One tiny alligator bite at a time.   Because after all, this is the Kindergarten T Ball league. We don't even keep score.  About the only thing I could actually do would be to ruin their love for the game by being overzealous. I figure the only way they're going to learn the rules of the game is to play it. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Play Ball!