season closer part deux

and, we're back!

with anth.
at his last baseball game of the season/the first one mom took more than 2 pictures of...on her phone.
#ipromiseiadoremykids

anth, not shockingly, always goes back to the bench and dutifully sits where he was told while waiting for his turn at bat. 
always. 
even while complete and utter mayhem is ensuing about him. 

ben, also to no one's surprise, dutifully runs over to pester anthony on the bench, as instructed not to by his mother. 
always. 

anth, as he was for most games, was three for three. 

why no head? 
glad you asked. 
that's because there is a pond/lake/fake form of water in the park where anth plays. 
it has a little fountain in the middle of it. 
benny finds it rather alluring. 
as such, he begged me to take him over to it. so we struck a deal. 
i would take him to the fountain if he would let me take a picture of him. 

i failed to clarify what kind of picture i wanted out of him. 
this was not the spirit of photo i had in mind. 
so i went for one sans face. 
perhaps now i best understand why Priscilla (of the amazing Priscilla Joy Photography) took the picture of all four of us in jeans. including only our jeans and feet. 

i really like this kid. 
total keeper. 

bern spent most of the season coaching third base. 
this involved less coaching and more dust monitoring. 
the kids love to kick up dust. 
bern's nickname was The DustBuster. 
actually, it wasn't. i totally just thought of that. but it should have been. 

neither of these boys looks very pleased. 
plus anth is rocking the pose of an 80-year-old-man with lower back pain. 

okay. this kid isn't mine. or even on my kid's team. 
but, he totally stopped to do this in the middle of the game. 
haha. 

anth, being the world's most precious peanut, ran into third base for his final hit of the game and leaped up to daddy for a hug. 
bern gave him a quick squeeze and redirected him to third base. 

Coach Mike had all the players take a final lap around the field together at the end of the game. 
(aka, more dust.)

anth clearly loved it. 

ben was deeply moved by the whole experience. 

season closer

i admit it. 

i did a terrible job of documenting anth's first baseball season. 

this was for a handful of potential reasons. 

1. it rained. a lot. hence over half of the games were cancelled. 

2. ben. when i bring him, he doesn't so much want to sit and watch baseball.

3. i am an abject failure. 

4. some sort of combo of the above. 

either way, anth had three games tacked on to the end of his season to make up for the incessant weather earlier in the season. 

two of these were while i was in New Orleans. 

bless bernie. 

the third was, thankfully, on my first day back in town. 

i brought the camera. 

and ben. 

so, the following are the best i could do while wrangling a three year old...

even on the walk in, you can see he was in a cantankerous mood. 
yep. that's right. 
i said cantankerous. 
anth was clearly walking far ahead. 

my sweet boy at the top of warm-up. 

the usual drills.

these glasses do not belong to ben. 
or bern. 
or me, for that matter. 
they belong to the man sitting next to us. 
right...

daddy snuck in a squeeze before heading off to coach third base. 

a quick walk to remind ben that he was here to watch anth's game. 

ben's response. 
he did this for approximately 15 minutes. 
well, not this exact position. 
but a serious of running in giant circles and shouting "plop" before landing back in this same pose. 
all class. 

here is where ben begged me to take a photo of anthony playing baseball. 
he insisted he could see anth through the eyepiece. 

you can easily see anth's reaction to benny running over to steal his water. 

you have to look a little harder to see the impish smile on benny's face. 

the actual game?

whatever do you mean?

that's tomorrow, friends. 

Mother Nature detests baseball

since mid-april, i have become keenly aware of what the weather is going to be each day. 

it's really quite simple. 

you see, if anth has a baseball practice, or game, scheduled...it shall be rainy. 

and rainy might be an understatement. 

if anth has a game scheduled, Mother Nature consistently decides to wail down on us. 

and throw big old blops of rain. 

sometimes hail. 

and lots of ominous clouds.

when she's feeling rather feisty, she mixes in some rather flashy lightning.

over 60% of anth's games/practices have been cancelled this season. 

including tonight's game. 

tonight is what really helped me confirm this theory.

anth's game was at 6:30. 

bern was picking him up around 5:00 to get some dinner in him before the game. 

and, seeing bern in line to pick up anth from his summer sports camp, she freaked out. 

"she" being Mother Nature, of course. 

just the mere thought of a baseball game made her moody. 

all black clouds and thunder and sheets of rain. 

this lasted until anth's youth league website declared the game was cancelled. 

when i picked up benny at 5:30, the skies were clear and sunny. 

now, i admit it. 

baseball is not my favorite sport. 

i prefer faster paced games. 

football.

basketball.

(well, if i'm really being honest, i prefer women's gymnastics and So You Think You Can Dance.)

all of this is just to say that we have a disappointed batter on our hands. 

anth likes to bat. 

he's good at it. 

he can hit off the pitch. 

but he's not getting to do it as much as he would like. 

here are some pictures from two weekends ago when he did get in a good game...

little man is just to the right of Coach Mike. 
he is always at Coach Mike's side. 
to the point that they have started to call him Little Coach. 

this is what effort looks like in action.
seriously. 
check out that face. 
(this is also what a small section of the fence looks like. in case you were wondering.)

here's anth running by daddy while he's coaching 3rd base. 

and this is my sweet boy coming into home. 
he likes to run up to home base, stop, and jump on it with both feet. 

and this? 
this is just precious. 

ben loves coming to anthony's games. 
i am not so certain that he is aware of the fact that anth is actually playing a game. 
he is, however, very aware of the fact that there are snacks. 
and that he usually gets one. 
he is even more aware that games are played at schools and parks. 
and that schools and parks have playgrounds.
and that you can climb even higher/faster when making fishy faces.
(he picked this one up quickly. it took me forever to figure that one out.)

but the best part of parks are always the slides. 
they can't building them high enough, or twisty enough, for this one. 


so.
if anyone has an in with Mother Nature...
could you drop her a line? 

baseball and bubbles

tonight we are spending some time saying goodbye to a gem of a colleague who is heading off to his next big adventure.

and you know what that means...

lazy post!

not so long ago, we had a few consistently sunny and beautiful days here in Columbus.

for the boys, sunshine translates directly to baseball and bubbles in the backyard.

which clearly requires shades.

really classy shades.

and lots of blue clothing.

 

apparently, benny was not pleased with the umpire's call.

 

also, note that anth was the one playing baseball.
yet also the one assisting his brother, who was watching, to his drink.

ben quickly moved on to bubbles.

 

which requires an intense level of focus.

 

this might be my favorite from the day.

becuase they thought i was off taking photos of benny.

(i'm sneaky like that. stealth, even.)

love. love. love.

they say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

i believe that this one is. 

some of those words might include: 

anth, inflatable bat, ground.

ben, screaming.

i just don't quite know what the rest of the words are.

or what, exactly, happened to anthony.