Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Opening Day Hooray!

I was sitting here this evening, trying to come up with something to write. Should I talk about how I stayed up until 3:00 AM writing last night and as a result, overslept and got my kids to school 20 minutes late this morning? Or maybe I should write about how Clay had a field trip to the library for school today. I forgot about it. I took him to preschool. No one was there. Duh. I hightailed it across town to the library. The really impressive part of that story is the fact that I did the same thing this fall when I was supposed to drop him off at a farm for a field trip and I forgot and brought him to school that day too. Or perhaps I should write about how I put off going to the grocery store until we were low on all sorts of things and I had to go shopping at 9:30 at night. (By the way, you meet weird people who crash their carts into your ankles at 9:30 at night!)

But the thing that sticks out in my mind was Austin's baseball game. His first game was tonight. It was 39 degrees here. So we sat there at the football er, um baseball game in our winter coats with blankets wrapped around us. That is, most of us sat there in our winter coats. Some of us, ahem, Brooklyn and Austin were too stubborn for something as silly as a coat in 39 degree weather. Austin was too cool (Ha! Literally!) to wear his Under Armor or a sweatshirt under his baseball uniform. And Brooklyn, well, Brooklyn was just Brooklyn and threw an all-out screaming fit when we wouldn't let her take her coat off in the middle of the game. As she screamed her head off, parents on the bleachers turned around to see what horrific injury the screaming girl had suffered to make her so miserable. When they realized she was just protesting our cruel and unusual punishment of making her wear a coat in 39 degree weather, they looked questioningly at me. I kinda shrugged my shoulders and explained, "She's our last."

After 2 hours, the boys had only played 4 innings. Ugh. All I can say is - thank God for the slaughter rule. I think it's going to be a long season.

17 comments:

Lesley said...

In the league of things we have to do as parents, I can think of nothing worse than having to sit through a game of any description. And in the cold too! No wonder Brooklyn threw a fit as I think I would too.

Thank goodness my son inherited my loathing of anything that involves kicking, hitting or throwing a ball.

Lisa said...

Too funny! I can't believe that with six kids, you actually have to think about what to write! I love reading about your family. :)

Anonymous said...

I think something is wrong when it's 39 in Chicago and 85 in Connecticut on the same day in April. Our first spring soccer game saw us all in tank tops and shorts praying to avoid heatstroke. Oh well, by Thursday we'll probably need the UnderArmor too!

~Laura

Jim @ CoolStuffForDads.com said...

Spring weather for baseball can be cruel. At least you have warmer weather to look forward to :)

Anonymous said...

Ahhh I do remember those days! Not fondly, of course. All I can say about Brooklyn is "let her take the coat off". She will soon realize that everything you've been saying is right. My daughter (and son for that matter) were exactly the same way. It killed me to see them walking out of the house in a t-shirt in 40 degree weather. It killed me to see them standing at the buss stop shivering in t-shirts but guess what? The very next day they wore coats and never left without them again just to look "cool" like the other kids!

Unknown said...

I never remember field trips. Lucky for me I don't actually have to drive them to the field trip... I usually just forget things like packing them a lunch or signing a permission slip.

39 degrees! It's almost May!

Anonymous said...

My sister had the 5 Minute Rule for her daughter when the girl wanted to wear her summer dresses on winter days with no jacket...... she had to stand on the balcony for a full 5 minutes to determine if her judgement was sane or not. The kid usually came to the same conclusion as her mom (that her choices could use some tweaking) and ran to change her clothes before she had to leave.

Rhonda

Unknown said...

We are a football family and three of our four boys play. Our three girls have been dragged to games for years now. My youngest was on the sidelines at two days old. Here in Texas, we start the season playing in 100 degree weather, sweating our butts off and end up freezing on the sidelines, huddled together for warmth.

Jill said...

Am I the only one that doesn't know what the slaughter rule is?

Lisa Noel said...

ah IL weather gotta love it. We don't start TBall for a few weeks yet and games aren't until June I think. Although we've still been cold at games (not THAT cold) in June. But the boys are doing Flag Football this year and that starts this week so we'll be out in it. But at least you 'feel' better about I think watching football vs baseball.

Anonymous said...

So which team got slaughtered, Austin's or the other guys?

Christine said...

Totally relate! Do you feel like your on a rollar coaster that never, EVER let's you off? LOL!! I am so there!

Brian said...

@Jillena: The Slaughter Rule is also known as the "Mercy Rule." It stops games from having scores of say... 65-2. Here is a pretty good description on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_rule

Michelle said...

Lucky you -- this was your first baseball game. We're working on our third week of games... of course we've hardly been able to play with all the rain and cold.

OH! And I was at Zinnia's in the Ice House Mall today, and the woman who owns it was telling me that she gave out all her little postcards about your talk coming up there and that people are very excited about it... sounds like you'll have a good response to it!

Anonymous said...

Envy me Dawn....my son plays T-ball and they call it a 'game' here once the kiddos have played for one hour (sometimes 45 minutes)!!! Oh yeah, no more cheering for the kids running the bases the wrong way or heading for the wrong dug out! I really do love your stories about cold days at the ball park, but I hope to everything Holy that I never have to get Mickey D's coffee with 8 creamers (LOL just to survive a ball game. Have a Grrrrrrrrr-eat season!

Esther (UK) said...

Ah Dawn.

Today I looked at the Duggars website and decided that I need to change my parenting style and become a lot more like them. The calmness, the organisation, the joy at being surrounded by so many little faces...

I did very well until about 7.25pm when I was about to get the kids ready for bed and discovered that one of them had used a marker to decorate the stair bannister, the walls, the study door, a leather chair, and the computer.

They are all now in bed (one in particular is still issuing little sobs for some reason) and when I sat down with my cup of tea I decided to forget about the Duggars website and come on here instead.

Thankyou :D

Abby said...

How bad was the score for his game?? I did scorebook for one tonight that took an hour for the bottom of the 2nd inning and was 19-0 in the 3rd. The ump was actually telling kids to swing at anything close!!

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