Day 188 (5/10): Kids-n-Kups

Baseball. Batter Up. Boys. Bats. Balls. Boring. Maybe I should have left that last B-word off but the sport is boring to me. I try to make it to a couple of Royals and KSU BatCat games a year but I go for the atmosphere. When Colton was asked to try out for a traveling baseball team, I thought "How hard can it be?" A few tournaments on the weekends and then double-headers one day a week. Well it has been hard for me. The weather has been horrendous - 35 degrees for 5 hours outside is cold. Then throw in the rain and it makes for a very unpleasant night. Now add a dash of 20-30 mph wind and it is miserable.

I have to get my jollies somehow to make the walking and stealing fest of 9 year old kid-pitch baseball go a bit faster. I've been concentrating on taking pictures of the kids. You see a lot through the lens. Kids dancing in the outfield because they have to go to the bathroom or are that b-word. Kids mowing the outfield with their glove. Kids watching the game on the next field. Coaches have even asked me to take pictures of kids in the unready position. So it has made those baseball (insert other B-word here) games go a bit faster.

The one thing that is new to Colton is the equipment necessary for baseball. Most of the other kids wear a cup. Colton has refused to even try one on. I got him one. It has been sitting in the back of the car still in the package just in case. I was thinking the peer pressure of the other kids all having one would make him start wearing one. Mark has told me that when he gets hit with a ball there he will start wearing one. That has yet to happen. I finally wanted to see if it even fit so I forced him to try it on.

So he put it on. The conversation went something like this...
Mom: So how does it feel?
After a long pause...
Colton: It makes my....you know what...look really big.
Mom: (trying not to laugh too hard) Someday you will want that thing to be that big.
(Mom leaves the room to cover up totally cracking up.)
Mom: Try moving around to see how it feels.
Colton: I can jump in this thing?
Mom: Yes you can run and do everything else baseball players do.

Oh my...what a memory. He'll probably kill me for blogging about it if this is still around when he gets a few years older. But kids are kids and they wear cups in baseball. They talk about cups in baseball.

The other night when I was standing in the dugout, a player came over to his dad who is also a coach and says, "Where's my nut cup? I'm going in as catcher." I, of course, start laughing but that is how I'm coping with baseball. Pictures and the funny stuff that kids say and do on and off the field.