In which she knits, there is cool air, and baseball

Last week the boys played in their baseball post-season tournament (city parks and rec baseball).

Son2 was very discouraged, feeling that his T-ball team would only play (and lose) two games and be out of the tournament, no longer able to play games. We attempted to cheer him up and encourage him, that playing is fun, being a good team during the game is fun no matter the score, etc.

They lost the first game somewhat badly I think -- I never pay a lot of attention to the T-ball scores, and his gloominess continued. BUT two nights later his team was AHEAD for part of the game, scoring many RUNS and doing really great!... on their way to a 1-point loss. Wow! Closest game in a while!! He and other kids on the team were really sad that they lost, but the coach was really, really great, telling them how proud he was of them (I'm: sniff, sniff), etc. After a nice treat, Son2 was somewhat recovered and looking forward to Son1's second game the next night.

Meanwhile, Son1's team won its first game! In the second game, the following night, Son1's team was totally bulldozed, steamrolled, etc., by its opponent -- especially the pitcher. This is the first year of kid-pitch baseball (all the same age, 10-year-olds) for us, and this pitcher is relatively accurate (lots of strikes) and fast (lots of strikes). Son1's team just lost heart and limped through the game, despite everything the coaches did and said to encourage them. Tough times.

Two nights later they played their third game and lost, not quite in the game though they did have a few plays to be proud of. AGAIN I was sooooo impressed with how their main and assistant coaches talked with the boys after the final game, saying how proud they were of the boys, giving specifics, talking about this game and about the whole season, practices, etc. (Sniff, sniff.)

Early in the week both boys got to participate in a free, one-morning baseball clinic put on by top high-school coaches and players from various states, in town for the Sunbelt Classic series. Both boys LOVED the clinic, got even more fired up about baseball (and T-ball), and got a lot of great instruction with skill drills.

Now baseball and T-ball are over for this year. Both team's coaches said they will plan a get-together to celebrate the season in a week or so. That will be good. Dear husband and I are making tentative plans for Son1 to get some hitting practice with a good friend of ours, and are thinking about how to keep both boys' skills up over the months between now and next spring so they start the next season more confident.

<>

I did mention knitting and cool air. Hmmm. Baseball and T-ball ended for our boys by Thursday night, so Friday evening we went to a game of the Sunbelt Classic series here in our fair city. This is a round-robin series of games between state teams of excellent ballplayers who have just graduated from high school. It was great! Kinda like single-A ball, I would guess, with maybe 100 fans in the stands at our local university's very nice ballpark.

We arrived near the end of the previous game, and then there was a half-hour break, so I started knitting a heel on my lacy New England socks for me; that was really nice. I knit a little more during the late game, but eventually put it away (lace, with tiny little sock yarn, on tiny little needles...). We had a great time, and my guys returned for Saturday night's championship game (I was at my book club).

When we arrive for the Friday evening game, though, we realized that the cooler weather that day (high in the low 80s, I think) meant we would get rather cool sitting and watching baseball for three-plus hours. We were of course wearing clothes for our more typical 90F days or a warm, humid evening. We were fine, I was fine, until the game ended and we walked to our car. Suddenly! Chilled! What was this foreign feeling?!? To be chilled in Oklahoma in June?!? Amazing!

We drove the couple of miles home, and proceeded to turn off the a/c and open up the house. I might have been chilled after sitting for hours, but not once I got moving. Lovely! It was a bit warmer over the weekend, but last night and tonight the temps are in the LOW 60s -- so, fling open the windows as soon as it's below 80 this early evening! Fall asleep to the sounds of frogs and insects and people playing basketball in the park behind our house! Drink it all in, enjoy it thoroughly as a brief lull in our blazingly hot summer.

And that's what I have to say about that!