An Opening Day Flop
I had been looking forward to Saturday, April 8th because it was the day of our church’s annual Easter egg hunt & celebration. A couple of church friends and I had been planning the celebration for months. Then, when I found out that it was also opening day for Roman’s little league, I began to dread the day. I knew that trying to accomplish both things in one morning was going to be difficult. While the egg hunt turned out to be fantastic, unfortunately, Roman’s opening day was a complete flop.
He is one of the youngest players on the league, having just barely made the cutoff. He has shown a lot of interest in team sports so we were confident in our decision to start him with t-ball, but after Saturday, we’ll be “seeing what happens” for the next few weeks.
It was unbearably cold & windy that morning. While the older boys were okay with just a couple of layers, I wish I would have put one… or ten… more layers on Roman. On top of the cold, there was this (way-too-long) opening ceremony where the Little League President stood in front of everyone and thanked (what-seemed-like) every volunteer who ever donated a minute to the league in the last 75 years. Okay, I am exaggerating. It was fine and I understand the importance of the ceremony. I’m sure that for the older boys on the league, it was all well and good, but for my three-year-old…. my goodness. It was so cold, and he had no idea what was going on, and the ceremony stretched on for at least a half an hour!
By the time the game actually started, he was already over it. I had to leave to head over to the church and setup for the hunt. After several distressed texts and phone calls from his Papa, and every conceivable attempt to get him to calm down, we made the call to pull him out of the game. When they arrived at the church a little while later, he came inside and warmed up. Soon his friends arrived. We had an amazing time and forgot all about the stressful events of the morning. (More on the Egg Hunt soon.)
It’s a shame because he has been having so much fun leading up to this day. He loved his first practice and he’s been practicing throwing & hitting with so much zeal. On Tuesday we will have his next practice and then another game later this week. We will see what happens… Fingers crossed that warm weather and no more “opening ceremonies” will lead to a much happier Little Leaguer.