T-Ball, Take Two

 April has arrived in all it's rainy, misty, mucky, just-shy-of-freezing glory and y'all know what that means: baseball!

Boy One played (or, at least, attempted) rookie baseball last spring and made it through fairly unscathed.  And considering that Boy Two was hugely jealous that he wasn't able to participate then, we signed them both up for this year and they are playing on the same team.

We are with the same coach as last year and many of the same kids are on the team so Mama is feeling pretty secure confidant about the expected routine.  However, I may take those words back in about a month.

Boy Two demonstrating his run through first base.  Good centering.

Boy Two started (and ended) the first day of practice by jumping up and down with giddy excitement for an entire hour.  Yay!  Baseball!!  He may not have paid that much attention to what the coaches were advising him, but his enthusiasm was so palpable you could spread it on a piece of toast.

My boys like each other a lot.  At least, for now.

 Boy One, feeling pretty sure of himself (since, you know, he did this last year), spent less time doing what he was supposed to and instead acted the part of the team clown: silly voices, silly antics, silly running moves (oh, wait, he may have gotten those from me).

The new assistant coach was particularly pleased that Boy One can bat left-handed (the dads' all let out a cheer because of this: yes!  Secret Weapon!) and Boy Two, not knowing the difference, is following in his brother's footsteps and also training himself to bat left-handed. 

Sure, why not.

At last night's practice the boys were in the same assemblage: catch a grounder and throw it to the first base man.  Fairly straight-forward, yet Boy One was at first base and Boy Two was fielding the ground ball.  Instead of throwing it to first, he ran the ball there (we all do it - no big deal).  But when reminded of the rules of the drill, fulfilled them by throwing the ball at his brother - who was a mere three feet away. 

Boy One didn't even have a chance.

Sadly, this morning there wasn't a big shiner around his eye to parade around school as a badge of honor, which would have been the only truly acceptable recourse to the tragedy. 

Girl, in typical fashion, prefers to spend the hours reserved for baseball practice either picking flowers, jumping off the bleachers to make her dress pouf, chastising her Dolly, or roughing up Grandad.

A token picture of Girl: for her fans.