The Dog Days of Spring?

 Melanie and I our now finding out what parents have been doing for eons when their kids are involved in multiple activities. Yes, these days we live our lives off the big calendar by the stove. I guess we’ll save it for future reference in case we need it, although I don’t think anyone here will be grilled for a seat on the Supreme Court anytime soon.

By Saturday, on consecutive evenings from Monday this week we’ll have had: football practice and a t-ball game; football game; t-ball practice; football game and t-ball game. Luckily, we’ll only have a few days in the coming months when both schedules conflict.

Connor has been wanting to play organized football for a while so we’re breaking him into the sport slowly, allowing him to play flag football this year. Down the road we’ll let him suit up for tackle football, but for now we’ll limit the head shots.

Since seeing her brother playing t-ball and coach-pitch, Harper has been interested in getting out onto the diamond. Add a post-preschool ballet class on Monday and Saturday gymnastics and she is certainly staying active.

Harper had only two practices heading into her first 4/5-year-old game Monday as rain continued to wash out days. The team hadn’t even practiced defense but that wouldn’t turn out to be a problem. Her team-of course the Braves-batted first and she rapped a “single” to the infield. After the team batted around it was their turn to take the field as a unit for the first time.

It went about as expected as she joined the majority of the team in finding the best clumps of dirt to play with. She did run with the rest of the team once when a ball reached the outfield, but she didn’t join in the pileup. She also spent some of her time in the infield practicing her ballet toes looking like Michael Jackson about to Moonwalk.

By the time she was done in the field a second time, she looked whipped; walking off the field like a man about to face execution. She rallied of course after the game with a juice box and snack.

Like Harper, Connor had seen most of his practices washed out, but that didn’t affect him much since he’s familiar with football. And having the coach on the field for the first game to call plays and put people in the right position helped. Connor did great. He ran for two touchdowns, threw for another and had two interceptions, of which he was most proud of.

There’s no telling if they will continue playing sports down the road, but for now it’s incredible to see them just having fun with what they’re doing.