The dailiness of everything, ways to create and cope, help and heal, learn and live!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

I Love Our Little League


You all know we are a baseball family. I love it. The boys love it (the biggest one especially). It is the most fun. It is exhausting at times but still, it is a wonderful experience for us all.

Last night I sat and watched 3 teams play a practice game. It is spring break so a lot of our kids were on vacation with their families, so three of the coaches got together and decided to play a game. Which, by the way, is the best way for the kids to practice in my opinion. As I sat and watched each of the players arrive, I saw kids who had been in class together and played on past teams together greeting each other with smiles. They warmed up together. The coaches would chat with the kids and rough up their hair as they passed. It was a good feeling to be back amongst so many of our friends.

Let me back up a bit. When we first started playing baseball, I had no idea what to expect. As a matter of fact, I was dreading the schedule that would turn me into a "soccer mom" for the following months. The first year was exactly as I thought. A lot of work, a lot of competition. No relationships. We left to go to a game and we came back home. I did not like it, the boys did.

So we signed up again. The next year, an amazing thing happened. We got on a team that understood that competition and friendship can cooincide. Very well at that. We had the most wonderful year. What we observed and learned is that the coaches that were on these teams not only wanted their team to do well and succeed. They wanted the other team to do well and succeed. They wanted every kid out there to feel they had done their best and played with their heart. The parents sitting in the stands would be rooting for a friends child on the other team every bit as much as they did their own child.

This seems like a conflict of interest. To be honest it took me a while to understand what was going on. These parents understood that competition is not just about winning. Winning is not the most important thing. Don't get me wrong, these coaches wanted their own team to win. They wanted it badly. They had simply come to a place where they understood as much as they wanted to win, it was not the end all be all of the day. What did give satisfaction is that the two teams played their best. They wanted each one of these kids to understand that their success was not in whether they won or lost, but whether they did their best, treated their team mates and opponents with respect, and enjoyed playing the game. Though winning is great and it is not a game without competition, more important is the child learning the little life lessons that come in abundance in competitive play.

I loved seeing the coaches from the other teams squatting down in front of another teams player and coaching them as well. I loved laughing at them as they joked around with each other and how when one got tagged as he slid into third, the third baseman reached out, helped him up and checked on him, helping him dust off.

I think the attitude can be summed up in a conversation between father and son as the boy walked up to the plate to bat. "Be a hitter", dad said. The little boy replied, "Be a winner". The dad corrected and said, "No, be a hitter".

Yep...I love little league. So much.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

With the Spring Comes the Storms....


I was at work the other day. Last Friday I believe is when it was 74 degrees and sunny. Beautiful day. Such happy feelings, sitting there in the sun watching the children laugh and play. Glorious. I was talking to another teacher and she said, " Everyone always forgets that Spring weather brings storms". Oh. She is right.


This week. Storms. Yesterday it rumbled all...day....long....


But I loved it. I loved the fact that it gave me an excuse (weak one though it was) to snuggle up and work at home, thanking God for the excuse. No errands on my day off. Just piddling around the house. It was loverly.


It is much like my spiritual walk. I will come to a sunny place. It seems easy. My faith is strong. It feels wonderful. I glory in my salvation. But out of nowhere comes a storm. But I do not snuggle down in them. I don't sit back and thank God for the opportunity for growth. I fall into a spiritual funk. I resent the hand that allowed the storm and ask "Why?"


I need to work on my spiritual endurance every bit as much as my physical.


I hope next time there comes a storm...I will be willing to thank God no matter if it is what nature or life conjures . Flex the spiritual muscles and stave off the funk. Lord give me strength.




Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Stick it out...


I have been persuaded by my dear husband to take on a new exercise regimen with him. I said a casual okay, mainly because I didn't think it would happen. But this time he meant it. We are in the process of completing our first week doing P90X.

If any of you have heard of it - then you know it is literally a butt kicking exercise program that soft, mushy people like myself should not undertake lightly.

The first day I did it with little resistence, my main objection being he thought doing it at 8:30PM was a good idea (HELLO...that is MY time and I don't want to spend MY time SUFFERING). But we did it. And I hated it. HATED IT. I am having to capitalize to make it clear my resentment of this ordeal. It was horrid. The second night he caught me crying in the kitchen. That is not what I intended...but I really did not want to do it. But I did it anyway. And when it was over, I was glad. Not just glad it was over, but glad I did it...even though I hated it just as much. I actually woke up sore all over this morning and think that I will not cry tonight when he comes home getting ready to do it all over again. I am resigned that this is what I need to do.

I am a little surprised that I actually think I might be able to do this. Mainly because I hate exercising at night. It is my lowest energy level of the entire day. I like to sit on my mushy backside and watch my shows at that time of night. I deserve that right? That is such a bad attitude though. I need this. I know it. I did it - two nights in a row - even though I did not want to do it.

This brings me hope.

I am pretty sure that I can do it.

This is good.