Take me out to the ball game...

... take me out to the (t-ball-sized) park, buy me hot cocoa and extra socks... Oh, wait, that's not how the song goes!

But a hot drink and winter layers were necessary at Evan's first baseball (well, t-ball) game today. It was really cold out! More importantly, though, it was a lot of fun. This is his first actual team sport experience and he is having a blast. His coach is a great guy, with the perfect temperament for working with a bunch of squirrely 4-6 year-olds. I think Evan is actually learning some fielding skills. He's been a solid hitter since he was about 2 years old and hit his first wiffle ball over our back fence.

Games at this level are very simple. Each player on the team gets a turn at bat (they're given 4 pitches to try to hit, and then they get to use the T). A hit (from a pitch or the t) gives the batter a chance to run to base. If a succesful defensive play is made, the player does have to go back to the dugout, but outs are not counted and neither are runs. The kids progress around the bases as hits are made by their teammates, and most end up crossing the plate at least once. Once their team's at-bat is up they rotate out to take the field for the defensive half of the inning. The goal is for them to actually follow the action, try to catch balls hit, and perhaps make a play or two. We'll see how that goes. ;-)

The games run a maximum of 3 innings or 90 minutes, and I seriously doubt we'll get to more than 2 innings in a game this season. Evan played shortstop for their first inning today, and he was proud of being assigned such a prestige position. So far I am having fun being a baseball mom...

Go Giants!

39 is the new 35

So according to a facebook "real age" quiz, my body thinks I am 35 years old. But I recently got an e-mail from a high school friend who thought I'd turned 40 this year. We graduated together, but as I had skipped a year in elementary school I was younger than most of my classmates. 40! I've got another 51 weeks to go (not that I'm counting)! As she and I e-mailed back and forth we compared notes on age and milestones, contrasted ourselves with our mothers, and generally hashed out our thoughts on life's chronology and the timelines we create.

In such comparisons I often begin with the similarities between my mother and me: we are both eldest children, both daughters (duh), and we both married at age 25. But while I (with my husband) bought a house at 26, my mother still does not own a home. And I am still in the same house more than 12 years later. When my mother was in her 30s and my siblings and I were young, we moved constantly. In fact, I can't come up with an exact count of places we lived.

More minor differences: I was almost two years older than my mother was when we had our first children (both daughters, so a similarity within a difference): she was almost 27 when I was born, and I was three months shy of 29 when Lydia was born. She'd also been married only a few months when she got pregnant; Andrew and I waited until after our second anniversary. She went on to have my brother at age 29 and my sister at 32; I was 33 when Evan was born. And two children will be it for us!

Moving into comparisons between our husbands... my dad was 3.5 years older than my mother (29 when they married, 30 when I was born); Andrew is nearly 7 years older than I am (32 at our wedding; 35 when Lydia was born). Andrew had just turned 40 when Evan came along, while my dad was 2 weeks shy of 36 when my sister (the baby) arrived. My dad died at age 51, and Andrew is a youthful 45 now. It freaks me out to think my dad was only 6 years older when he died. Especially in that context, I can't reconcile Andrew with the age 45, and I always want to say he seems young for his years, whatever that means.

My parents separated shortly after their 15th anniversary. My mom was 41, my dad 45 (funny, I hadn't thought of this before but that is Andrew's current age). I will celebrate my 14th wedding anniversary this year. Though marriage is hard work, I am happy in my relationship and can't imagine not being with this person for the long haul. I hope I am not tempting fate by saying that...

Regardless of the similar or different ages at which we reached various points along our paths, for much of my life I have felt like more of a "grown-up" than my mom. I am sure this qualifies me for a ton of therapy, but mostly it just makes me really want to let my kids be kids! And it is even better when I can let them pull me back into feeling younger and more carefree, too.

Today, however, I am home with Evan who pulled the classic Saturday-night-at-midnight barf attack. He last threw up around 9 am Sunday, but was courting a fever all day, and kids have to be fever-free for 24 hours before going back to school. So we've watched a little old-school Christopher Reeve Superman and I will soon have to come up with some other mildly entertaining (but not TOO much fun) home-sick activities.

I think the esoteric generational comparisons are over for now...

Happy Birthday to Me!

I am somewhat shamed by Lydia's entry into the blog-o-sphere. We recently started a blog for her and she has been submitting fairly regular entries ~ certainly at a much better rate than I have. In an attempt to redeem myself, I will try to follow her lead by just throwing in a few thoughts when I have the time, rather than waiting for (1) inspiration and (2) the time in which to pursue it. I should know by now, those two luxuries rarely strike at the same time.

I suppose a birthday should count as inspiration! And today was mine. It was a busy day, as any Wednesday in the life of the mother of two school-aged children is likely to be. It is funny how the kids still seem to think the world should take notice of little things like birthdays. Having officially hit 39 (ack), I will be content to let all future birthdays pass with minimal fanfare. Though I am enjoying the birthday shout-outs from dear ones near and far, via facebook and otherwise! ;-)

A Kindergarten field trip was scheduled for today (just for my enjoyment, I'm sure): all 120 Kindergarteners were bussed from our elementary school in Fremont to the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose (about a half hour away). For many of the kids the bus ride was equally as exciting as the museum! Roughly 30 parents drove down to chaperon, and I was among those lucky adults. It was an adventurous two hours in the museum. I caught occasional glimpses of small playgroups and individual families who had come for the day, having no idea that it was "field trip day" for our lot. This prompted flashbacks to the days when I was the mom with a little one (or ones) at such a place, feeling completely overrun by behemoth school-aged children and fuming about inattentive parents who were not keeping them under control.

I can proudly say that Evan and the other two boys under my care were closely supervised and nothing untoward happened. I was a bit surprised, however, by the "lunch" packed for one of "my" boys: a chocolate eclair (the size of Evan's thigh) and a 16-oz bottle of NesQuik chocolate milk. Oh yeah, that was his lunch, or at least it was the only food he was given for a day that lasted from the 8:28 am drop-off until the field-trip-extended late pickup of 1:00 pm. Yikes! Apparently he is a picky eater and this is his mother's way of handling his refusal to eat lots of other foods. Wow. Enough said.

Anyway, we all survived and it was nice to actually have a field trip. Who knows if we will ever get one again, with the state of the economy and the education "budget" (as our government manages to call it with a straight face) continuing to compromise our kids' opportunities.

This segues very well into my evening's engagement: a PTA mini-training at the District Education building. Not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind for a birthday evening outing, but nevertheless it's where I was scheduled to be. PTA is gearing up for the CA State PTA convention next month, and it's looking like I will be serving a repeat term as President at our school next year. So I left the kids and Andrew to have dinner at In N Out Burger while I headed up to get inspired by fellow volunteers and eat some surprisingly good lasagna (and cake, because there just cannot be a PTA event without some cake involved). Again, it was a perfectly nice way to spend a Wednesday evening that just happened to also be my birthday.

Another year older, another year wiser. Right?