To travel ball and beyond!

At last, "the off season" is over, and baseball has finally begun again! The feeling of "coming home" as we set foot on the fields again was rather emotional!
This time last year, we only had ONE child in baseball, and were dealing with a "play-up-or-stay-down" situation, one of which I must blog about on aother posting......THIS year, we had a "travel ball dilemma" and an age-eligibility debate!
First: The age debate - my baby, no longer wishes to be called a baby, and is approaching 6 years old....and now, for winter ball, six year olds are allowed to play......so why the dilemma you may ask? Well.....my son, as well as being YOUNG, is SMALL, LOUD and....well....acts like a six year old! I find myself feeling sorry for the 8 year olds who would be his team mates....the ones who would have to sit next to him in the dug out. While wrestling with this decision, I heard many opnions from friends I respect. One pointed out that the older players NEED the younger ones to be there in order to highlight their own rank in the hierarchy - the older, more mature returning players are now the "top-dogs", the team leaders, and they NEED the younger ones to lead! Another pointed out that my little-guy's skills are now the skills of this next division, so skill-wise he's definately in the right place. The final decision wound up something like this - the little-guy can play, but DAD is his coach....and will hold him to high-behavior standards! We threw in a little controlled-parent-bribery - one can earn one's snack-bar money by maintaining the attitude of a pinto play - NO HISSY FITS allowed, and no bad-sportman-like conduct will be tolerated!!!!!
Second: The travel ball dilemma......as some of you have already read, we have dabbled a little in travel ball, but then put it on hold for the regular season of rec-ball. THIS winter, another travel-ball opportunity came a-knocking......this one seemed more favorable than before - family-church is not to be sacrificed, so far no wild financial demands, and we love the other families involved. The dilemma, was this - do we play rec-winterball AND travelball? We opted to keep it simple - ONE baseball sitation for each child - so our oldest is ONLY doing travelball.....when the spring season arrives, the consensus on the travel team is that we ALL back off of our travelball-training-schedule and focus on rec-ball......simple, simple....ONE baseball schedule each! A relief for sure - I am not a parent who can handle over-scheduling, and I'm not sure my kids would handle it, since we all know that when Mom's not happy, everyone else is not happy either!!!!!

This wouldn't classify as a post by the baseballmomster if there wasn't at least a handful of humor thrown in for good measure, so I'll leave you all with this, the latest tales of a wardrobe malfnction......as well everyone with two boys knows, usually the youngest covetts every possible item of clothing the oldest wears....and this is always the case when it comes to the baseball gear.....little-guy who is tiny, and clothing size 4T, attempts to borrow everything belonging to older-bro, who is a tall 9 year old.....the resulting "ensemble" is rather entertaining......baggy pants, and a shirt down to his ankles are the usual attire for my youngest, the entertainment occured when he was having...."cup-issues"......I couldn't work out quite what the problem was.....there was an agressive amount of.....ummm....GRABBING, going on, followed by the words "Mom....it's SIDEWAYS..."....this warreted a closer look, only appropriate for a caregiver, and it revealed this : WEARING YOUR OLDER BROTHER'S CUP KNICKERS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA! When suiting up for ball-practise, one must always make sure to wear the correctly-sized protective device in order to guarantee that it stays in the position it should!