Go Dinosaurs!

After watching Elizabeth play two seasons of T-ball, Ava asked me this summer to play as well. I was skeptical, but signed her up with Elizabeth for the fall season. The first practice was terrible. Ava whined, cried, and sat on the side lines sulking. However other than that first bad practice, she has had a lot of fun with T-ball. She loves to hit with her special purple bat. She flies around the bases, and even enjoys chasing down balls in the out field. We may have a future softball player, as she prefers to throw the ball underhand.Elizabeth is an old pro at T-ball. She has all the basic skills mastered and is ready to move up to coach-pitch if she wants to continue playing. She needs to move up! While I loved it when Elizabeth and Ava can do things together, I have notice that when she is with a group of younger kids she acts like them. Instead of being a roll model, she is an agitator. At school she is teacher's pet with me she is a demon child. I still love her, but she certainly knows how to push my buttons. In addition to both girls playing T-ball, I volunteered to be the coach. I have never played baseball/softball, but I figured it wouldn't be that tough to coach a group of 10 three and four year olds. Really it wasn't that bad, but I am not about to quit my day job and become a daycare teacher. I am in awe how the kids' daycare providers can keep 20 pre-schoolers happy and out of trouble all day long. We only practiced for an hour! Still, I had a lot of fun with the kids. I would make them run 1/4 mile around the track, they would practice catching with milk jugs, and they would throw into a garden cart that I added a funny face and called the "green monster." Overall, I was really proud of the Dinosaurs. By the end of the season they could hit the ball off the Tee on the first swing, everyone ran the right way around the bases, they would stand in the field in the "ready position" waiting their turn to catch, and they knew to throw to first base after getting the ball. Occasionally there were some tears, but overall they were all good sports. They would take turns and tell their opponents good job. Most of all my team loved to roar and stomp their feet. They got a kick out of being the Dinosaurs, and I had a blast being their coach.

The only draw back is that I don't have any action shots of the kids playing since I was always coaching, and the games that Ryan did attend he was chasing down Casey and not taking pictures. I will try to get some during out make-up game this weekend.