Top 5 Reasons for enrolling your children in organized sports:
5) Improve hand-eye coordination.
4) Learn to work as a team and socialize them.
3) Become involved in the community.
2) Increased physical activity means a healthier, happier child.
1) Coffee. (Specifically a medium Tim Horton's with two milk, one sugar)
My daughter began t-ball last week; my son will attend his first baseball practice on Saturday. This is my family's first venture into organized team sport. We are relatively under-programmed, compared to most other families I know, where our children are concerned. This has the advantage of the four of us not being a prisoner to a weekly calendar; conversely, we find ourselves occasionally bouncing off the walls trying to occupy each other.
With the two of them at home, there is less time to complete household or personal tasks in peace. Scraping stucco off the ceiling while praying your five and seven-year-old entertain each other can try your patience almost as much as digging plaster out of your eye.
When our community calendar was delivered, my wife and I combed through it convinced it was time they joined a team and became more exposed to life on an athletic field. For my son, soccer was eliminated; he was jostled on the pitch at the age of three and refuses to return. It was considered as an option for my daughter, but T-Ball was half the price thereby making it more risk-worthy should she end up hating it.
And so it began; that ritual practiced by millions of parents world wide: pick up from school, snack, homework, clean up snack, prepare supper, eat an early dinner, not quite finish cleaning up from dinner, change into baseball pants and cleats, drive to the field, get the kids to bed late, finish cleaning the kitchen, wake up the next morning and start again.
Except, amidst the center of this lifestyle hurricane, is an eye. In this eye there is calm. The eye forms in the following manner:
Upon arriving at the baseball field for the first practice, my wife speaks the magic words: "Who is going for coffee, you or me?"
"Ummm, I'll go, unless you want to."
"Nah, I'd rather stay." she answers.
Off I went; my Bluetooth amplifying my playlist to an empty car, the scent of fresh coffee swarming about the cabin, and 'SERENITY NOW!' flowing through me like an enema of alone time.
Back on the bleachers, nearly three-quarters of baseball practice was still left.
I sipped my coffee, spoke with other adults about adult things (our children, mostly), and held no responsibility toward anyone under the age of forty for nearly an hour.
Bliss.
Peace.
Organized community sports, how do I love thee?
Of course, my son's weekly practices are now scheduled for Saturdays, 3pm to 5pm. The forecast temperature for this weeks scrimmage is 93°F. I can't stand drinking hot coffee in hot weather. There goes that theory.
Wait!
Iced Cappuccino, how do I love thee?...can a practice go into extra innings?
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