In Which I Return to the Ballpark and Find That It’s Actually Fun

I knew(ish) what I was going to post today when I got up yesterday, but it wasn’t until I saw my Timehop that morning that I really knew what I was going to say. Two years ago, Sarah Kate had just signed up and started practicing for 10U softball. She had been allowed to play down in 8U when she was nine, but we told her she had to move up if she wanted to keep playing.

She did move up, and she started out strong, but then she started growing and the wheels completely came off. It was her final season of softball, and as much as I hated it sometimes, I loved it, too. Now we’re a family of softball fans without a player, so we root for ladies we don’t know (and one that we do) and smile when we think back to the days when Sarah Kate played.

Of course, Sarah Kate wasn’t the only one hitting off the tee in our backyard back in those days…

Nathan had this Little Tikes tee ball set (which he wore out). It eventually cracked and had to be thrown out, but he salvaged the bat and hit Sissy’s practice balls off her practice tee over and over and over. Almost two years after she quit playing softball, he’ll still go out back and hit her old balls.

Longtime readers will recall that once upon a time he tried soccer, and…it wasn’t all that successful (if you have never read about Nathan’s soccer experience, you might want to click on ye ol’ link and familiarize yourself with just how much of a fiasco it was before proceeding further). But in my quest for the elusive inclusion and friendships and exercise and all the rest, I recently broached with Mr. Andi the subject of having Nathan try a sport this fall – our options were soccer or t-ball.

He was not enthused about the prospect.

And I’ll be honest…I didn’t blame him. It’s sometimes difficult to see your kid with a disability interacting with their peers, because the impossible-to-ignore differences threaten to drag you into a comparison game that you honestly Can. Not. Win. and it’s really difficult when the interaction involves competitive sports. Neither he nor I wanted to be the parent that’s not the coach but has to be in the middle of everything, anyway, because our kid needs extra help.

For a couple of weeks, Mr. Andi was mostly hoping I would drop the whole thing (or that he could run out the clock by not making a decision until the deadline for registration had passed), but we ultimately decided that we would let him try t-ball this fall when there’s no pressure and no real competition. As before with swim team (when we knew the coach from church) and softball (when one of my good friends was on the league board), we had a friend in a key position with the league (the t-ball commissioner) who encouraged us to let him try. Never underestimate the power of a simple nudge from another person.

Sunday was his first practice…

… and y’all, it was fun! Now, I’m not gonna lie and say he was totally the best kid out there and he fit right in like a typical kid and you’d never know there was anything at all different about him, because that would be a lie. But he hit the ball when he was supposed to, ran toward the base when he was supposed to, attempted to field the ball (largely unsuccessfully) when he was supposed to, and threw it when he was supposed to and in the direction he was supposed to throw it.

So I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about t-ball.

On Monday he was still excited about it. We practiced with him a little in the backyard, and except for completely losing focus when a plane flew overhead, he did pretty well. Now let’s just hope the ballpark isn’t in the airport flight path… 🙂

And for your viewing pleasure, if you didn’t see it on Instagram already, Nathan bats at his first practice. I challenge you to (a) not laugh, (b) only watch it once, and (c) not picture “Dark Helmet” from Spaceballs.

Enjoy.

LOL #firstdayoftballpractice

A video posted by Andi Sligh (@andisligh) on Sep 13, 2015 at 1:46pm PDT