Thursday, April 24, 2008

Ball Practice Update

I'm here tonight to retract my last post. The most annoying person on Cade's ball team is now a toss up, between a boy named Benjamin a/k/a Jinjamin and someone's mother. I think it's going to swing back and forth for me the rest of the season. As soon as I make my mind up on which one it is, the other one will do something to change my mind.

Leading tonights race would be Benjamin. Jay and I call him Jinjamin because that's what Cade called him last year during summer school. As long as he's in school here he'll always be Jinjamin to us. Benjamin is the one shaping up to be the class bully - the one that's 6 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than the majority of the kids. He's also the one with the loud mouth who never shuts up. Tonight the kids not only batted, they ran the base. Somehow the coaches had Cade start running around the bases before he batted. I was talking to one of the coaches wives and both of us didn't think Cade batted. I tried to get Cade's attention to ask if he had batted but the coach started yelling at him to hurry up and get back in the outfield. Once the coaches thought everyone had batted they'd asked to make sure. Cade raised his hand but they didn't see him. I had to get their attention to let them know that Cade still needed to bat. Jinjamin started yelling "he's already batted, why does he get to bat again, that's not fair" etc. He wouldn't give it up. My momma bear instincts came out and I had to control myself from telling Jinjamin how it was. Then during the rest of practice Jinjamin keep yelling things to the other kids and the coaches - I know how to do it, I'm already doing it, etc. The coaches wife and I decided Jinjamin needed a good spanking. If Jay had been there he probably would've been the first to volunteer to do it.

The reason why one of the mother annoyed me was once again due to my momma bear instincts. She was teetering on the verge of annoyance during the first part of practice when she kept yelling at her child to pay attention and get in position to catch the ball. It wasn't helpful criticism, it was the kind where she's sitting in her lawn chair halfway across the field yelling at her child. Public humiliation of Cade is something Jay and I try to avoid. I know we'll do enough to embarrass him without meaning to over the years, we don't need to do it on purpose. Our method has been to pick up on what he needs to work on at practice and address it in the privacy of our home.

At the end of practice the kids lined up at homeplate to run the bases. The first time they ran them Cade didn't know what he was supposed to do and completely missed first buy running to the right of the pitchers mound. The second time he got closer to first, but he still missed it. The yelling mother took it upon her self to yell at him to come back and touch the base. All while she's still sitting in her lawn chair and hasn't moved a muscle since she had came to practice. This is one of the times I'm glad Cade has selective hearing, he either didn't hear her or he ignored her. That's when my Momma Bear came out again and I was so mad - how dare she embarrass my child in public. Winning games are nice, being a good player is also nice, but not at the expense of a 6 year old's self-esteem. Once again I realize this is probably as good of an experience for me as it is for Cade. Right now I'm thinking that me, Jinjamin and the yelling mother have a lot of years of school ahead of us.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't worry there will probably be more opportunites over the next 13 years to be annoyed with a parent or a child in Cade's class. I know there sure were a lot of when you and Charity were in school. I know what you mean about the Mamma Bear, I still have problems with some of the kids and parents when you were a senior.

Mom.