This morning I was cold, and standing in the bathroom with the hair dryer up my shirt when my sister called. I touched the word ‘answer’ on my phone’s screen, and waited for it to actually answer. But it didn’t. So I waited awhile and then held the phone to my ear and apparently it had connected anyway, because i could hear my sister laughing.

“OH! WAIT….! HANG ON!” I yelled over the sound of the hair dryer, because it takes two hands to turn the thing off. It took a moment.

“You’re like an old lady with a phone! What was that?”

It DID seem exactly like the sort of thing our grandmother would have done.

“Eh, hair dryer – I was cold. I don’t talk on phones much.” And then we had a lovely conversation that lasted for a very long time. I’m going to go see her for a couple of days at the end of the week. Yea!

At the end of the call I was telling her about yesterday’s baseball practice in our backyard. The boys took turns batting, while I pitched, and then they tried to teach me how to catch, and then we went back to batting.

I cannot catch a baseball.

It doesn’t matter if it is tossed lightly up and arcs gently down toward my glove from only a few feet away. Can’t catch.

Caden-7yr watched Ethan-10yr throw me in excess of 20 balls and watched me miss or drop every single one of them. Then he said, “This is so bad… it’s like being at a movie theatre.”

“What? You mean I’m so bad, it’s entertaining?”

“Yeah. That’s what I mean.” He shook his head in amazement at my 100% miss rate and said, “You don’t even accidentally catch one.”

True. We gave up teaching me to catch and the boys took turns batting while I pitched to them. I’d pitch 10-20 balls and then another one of them would take a turn. All three boys did well, and got some great hits. We have a few ‘real’ baseballs, and a bucket of big, baseball sized whiffle balls. The kids kept politely asking me to use the whiffle balls.

And I would, but then I’d try to talk them into the others. “When you hit one of the real baseballs, they go so much further. It’s WAY more fun, right?”

“Um. Yes. No, it’s okay, Mom. Could you please just use the whiffles?”

After having this conversation a few times with both Ethan-10yr and Caden-7yr, I figured it out. “Oh….! Is it because it hurts so much more when I hit you with the baseballs?”

“YES!” Caden-7yr on home plate and Ethan-10yr on first base yelled in unison.

I’m about as bad a pitcher as I am at catching. Almost. Not quite. But about half of the balls I throw will hit the kid square in the head (wearing a batting helmet), or other body part. I’m amazed at how polite they were. How they had just suffered in silence in the name of baseball. It cracked me up completely and they waited patiently, unamused, while I sat down in the dead grass and laughed until my stomach hurt. I apologized for all their mom -inflicted injuries, but my sincerity was probably undermined by the collapsed-on-the-lawn -laughing-fit that preceded said apology.

I remembered that my mom happens to be a much better pitcher than I am. I’ll invite her over next time. She’ll bring new meaning to the phrase, “relief pitcher.”

My sister asked me why I didn’t just throw underhanded, or not so hard. As if!

Throwing hard might be the only part of baseball I can do right! Aim will come later. Probably.

After I’d thrown Caden-7yr 3 whiffle balls in a row without hitting him, he’d warily say, “Okay. Try a real one. I trust you,” with a face and a stance that said he definitely did not trust me. And then I’d feel awful and throw it way wide to overcompensate and be sure I wouldn’t hit him. And then the next one I’d throw the other way to overcompensate for how wide the last one went, and then hit him again in the head and he’d shoot Ethan-10yr a loaded look and say, “Okay… whiffles please.”

But despite all of this, they’re having so much fun AND I’ve toughened them up so much that they don’t even let on they’re hurt. I think it’s a great start to the season!

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