The boys of summer...

Evan played in his last game of t-ball today.  Little by little our schedule of "extra curriculars" is dwindling down to nil.   I am ready for nil.  

They added a new intense warm up regimen to t-ball this year.  It literally took about 15 minutes of the 45 minute game.  It was kind of annoying because it seemed like every game Evan's team only got to bat once because they ran out of time.  Everyone knows that baseball is all about the hit and running the bases.  Forget all the stretching!  Four and five year old kids are limber enough already.  

Evan enjoyed playing.  He takes the game a bit more serious than Spencer and is a little more intense about it.   He still has his weed picking moments though.  

He was thrilled to show off his trophy to his big brother.   Though I bet he would have traded the trophy for the popsicle if he had to.  What is it about kids and popsicles?

I figured that since I was doing a post on baseball I should add some photos of Spencer's season that I never got around to blogging. 

His season was crazy intense this year.  It was like real baseball, where I was expecting it to be more like last year's instructional league.  They played out six innings.  The coaches pitched through the first half of the season, then the kids pitched alternating innings with the coaches the second half. They usually had two games a week.  And the game lasted about two hours each.  Intense. 

It may have seemed more intense to me than to others, because Spencer really does not seem to have the knack for baseball.  (I know, hard to believe by his intimidating lip purse and angry eyes in the above photo.)  He enjoyed chatting up his buddies on the bench and leading cheers of "Go Giants Go!", so he had fun.  He loved running the bases - he just never really afforded himself that opportunity very often.  One thing that I noticed about their team and really loved about it was how much the kids supported each other.  I don't know if the coaches had instilled in them to be that way or if they are all just super nice kids, but they would encourage the batter on the way up to the pitch and cheer for his hit - or if he struck out would pat him on the back and tell him "you'll get 'em next time".   It was teamwork that I have had yet to see in any of the sports "arenas" my boys have already dipped their toes in. 

Spencer miraculously got a hit the day I had my camera with me.  He was so pumped!  I just laugh at this photo with his arms in the air.  Double fist pump!

Ready to run to second after his hit.  He still had his smile plastered on his face. 

He looks fairly into the game in this out fielding shot.  I think his arm is raising up so he can bite his nails.  (I wonder where that habit came from?)  Most of his outfield time was spent in daydreams as he would watch the ball go by. 

I think this will be Spencer's last baseball trophy.  The other night at dinner when we were talking about Evan's t-ball game, Spencer announced that he didn't want to play baseball again. I told him that was OK and asked him if there was something that he would enjoy playing more that we could sign him up for.  He wanted me to give him some suggestions so I did.  Tennis?  No.  Golf?  No.  Soccer?  No.  I said that maybe sports were not really his thing and maybe he would want to spend more time in his theatre classes.  He asked me what day they would be on. (I have no idea why it would matter except for the fact that he probably saw some episode of Spongebob advertised to air on a certain day and wouldn't want to miss it with acting class!)  Then without really thinking about it I told him he could always take singing lessons.  His head sprang up and he repeated "Singing lessons?  You can take singing lessons?"  I told him that I am sure somewhere around here someone offers singing lessons.  To which he replied "Yeah - I want to take singing lessons!" 

I should also add that a week or so ago he told me that he wanted to tell me a secret that I couldn't tell Daddy or Evan.  The secret was that he was very good at singing and dancing.  I asked him if someone had told him that and he said no.  I asked him how he knew then and he said that he just knew it in his brain.  OK then.  

Then there is what I now refer to as the "High School Musical Incident" HSMI for short. Weeks ago on a Friday Spencer was in the living room watching HSM 1 and 2.  Evan and Dad were outside on the deck roasting marshmallows and I was probably wasting time doing something that was not updating my blog.  I happened to walk by the living room as the HSMers were doing one of their big musical numbers.  Spencer was dancing around in our living room like he was on FIRE.  The boy had moves going on that I have never seen before.  Jumping around.  Throwing himself on the floor.  Not what someone would call particularly good dancing, but quite a form of self expression none the less.  I grabbed the video camera and taped him without him seeing me.  Then he caught me out of the corner of his eye - I was ready for him to be embarrassed, but he just kept on dancing.  My greatest wish right now is that I could post that video to this blog.  Since I can't you will just have to hope for the encore at some point in the future.  

So I leave you with the words of Martin Crane from Fraiser :  "Catcher's mitts or oven mitts - they're still our little champions!"