Rare Peace and Quiet

No one is awake yet. It's Saturday morning and pouring rain outside and I'm going to do something I haven't done in awhile, write a blog. 

Life, mine especially, has been absorbed with baseball lately. Between running Jake to all his Majors practices and games, managing Tanners (FIRST PLACE!) AA Team through practices, games (we have four this week!) and clinics, and managing the Little League through our busiest months of the year, it's been a little nuts lately. 

We have taken some time to work in the yard, have a couple of family game and movie nights, have tried to get Faith to ride her bike and went and got them all weighed in and measured for Optimist Football/Cheerleading last night, but it's been baseball focused. 

There is Diamond Dust all over our house that get's dumped out from cleats and tennis shoes. A bottle of stain remover to get grass stains and french fry grease out of white baseball pants that lives on the counter. We've spent a small fortune on Eggo waffles as that is the choice for dinner on the way out the door to a game or practice and then as a pre-bedtime snack 4 hours later. We've gotten to be experts at keeping the cars packed with chairs/blankets/tarps/sweatshirts/water bottles/sunscreen. The door end of the garage has a huge pile of baseball gear that goes from garage to truck to field to truck back to garage several times a week. There are a couple of sweat-stained baseball hats that live on my desk that quickly get grabbed depending on which game or event I'm heading out to. 

Conversations revolve around schedule and logistics. Who needs to be where, when? Do we have a conflict? Are we home or away? Are you doing the field work before or after? Has X eaten? Are you guys stopping for food? Did you get any pictures? No? Me neither.

Sometimes, the baseball universe falls into place and we can all end up at the same place at the same time. We can watch a game together and spend some time with people who have become friends and our baseball family here. Faith can color and read while we watch the boys, struggle and compete. Win and lose. Succeed and fail. Where they learn how to be gracious winners and good losers. Where being a good team mate and keeping a positive attitude is the order of the night. Where Dad might take it a little bit too seriously. Where community explodes with a great hit or the catch of a line drive and groans when someone gets hit with a pitch or the ump misses a call. Where the best conversations happen in the parking lot on the way to the car. Where it's coordinating which dive you're going to for the post-game meal or whether it's home for Eggos and bedtime. Where we can talk and laugh with other parents who are living the same kind of life we are for awhile. 

It's baseball, and it's crazy, but it's the BEST.