Take Me Out To The Ballgame....

As our parents did for us, we have been encouraging our girls to play sports. I think there are a lot of good life lessons you learn when you play a team sport. Like not everyone can be the pitcher/quarterback/point guard, but every position is key to winning the game. The best lesson of all is also how to be a humble winner and a gracious loser. Life lessons, doled out freely game by game, practice by practice. Learned not just by the kids, but retaught to the parents as well.

I bring this up because we have now entered the realm of our kids playing sports. Holly is playing T-ball on the Osan Reds. YEAH!!!!!! How exciting is that?!? Ronnie says that T-ball is reminiscent of Calvinball. Everyone stands around on the field, and not really playing a base, because normally they just stand on it anyway. Each team has a complete run through their lineup. There are no outs and score isn't kept. I have to remind him that we're not really playing baseball, it's just more of a scrimmage than an actual game, but it's fun.

Holly was super excited about her first game. We bought her a glove a few years ago, and picked her up some pink "sleeves" to wear under her uniform like a "real" player does. Mostly she twirls around, talks to whomever is standing by her, picks at the astroturf, and tries to field the ball while running the bases. But it's all in good fun and she gets excited when I tell her to go get her glove.

Of course, this hasn't come with us learning a lesson or two about ourselves. In case you were wondering and didn't know this already, I'm "THAT" mom. You all know her and who her offspring is because she screams at the top of her lungs cheering and coaching from the sidelines. Yeah, that's me and there is video evidence. Ronnie's lesson that he's learning is he can't be the one to teach his kids all the time. There is a reason behind the saying of it takes a tribe, and never is that more apparant when Holly hangs on every word that her coaches say, but ignores the crap out of what he's trying to show her. Guess he got stupid quick.... and obviously doesn't know a thing about baseball (insert sassy eye roll here).

Speaking of, Ronnie is playing baseball again! Well, trying to at least. He's found a Korean baseball team that plays every Sunday. We went out to watch the team today; somehow it reminds me of when the Bad News Bears went to China to play. Or was it Japan? Whatever, the point is that they aren't really good. But it's baseball and that's a good thing. We're hoping he and our friend Matt will get to play this upcoming weekend, so more posts to come on this.

So, if MLB Opening Day didn't get your engine going for the baseball season, I'll leave you with this video. All I can say is this is what our national pasttime is all about!