A Different Glove

8:15 on Saturday morning was as good a time as any to play catch in the front yard.  The morning was beautiful, warm, but with a slight breeze, the humidity just this side of acceptable.  Daddy came out to water the flowers that line our walkway, and Samantha and I came out to have a "picnic" on the steps with our breakfasts.  Hopefully the neighbors in our tightly-packed townhouse community are forgiving of the shouts and squeals coming from our little patch.

Steve got Sammi her very first baseball glove last week.  It seems to be easy enough to get over her hand, but teaching the skill of coordinating eye and hand and moving-object-being-hurled-through-the-air is a huge challenge.  I'm sure she'll get it eventually, but it's pretty amusing watching the process.  The biggest trick is trying to get across that she has to move her hand with the glove towards the ball as it comes to her, keeping her eye on the ball.  Uh huh.  Right.

There was no success, other than the acknowledgement that she has a great throwing arm, and that she had a lot of fun trying to catch.

Sunday's baseball game went oooookay...  She was resistant for the first two at-bats, happily carrying the bat to the T, then dropping it, hands behind her back, when she realized she was expected to actually do something.  It's strange behavior to me - happy one second, seemingly ready to go, then completely shut-down the next.  Steve tried some re-direction, then made a playful game of holding her arms with his, and batting the ball together.  Running was no problem - she ran full-out to the bases, Daddy jogging alongside, and made a big show of stomping on the bags.  Of course she had no interest in watching the other batters and waiting for the next hit to allow her to run to the next base - she went ahead on her own (stealing!), or ran back to where I was, looking for a hug from Mommy.  Eh, she's only played baseball 2 times before...she'll get there...  By the 3rd at-bat she was happy to hit the ball "all by myself."

I'm a little bummed - there's a big Challenger League tournament in Virginia Beach this coming weekend, hotel and fees covered by the league for everyone who registered.  When we signed Sammi up for baseball back in March, we knew about it, and thought that what we were signing up for was including the tournament and that we'd receive more info closer to the time.  Turns out there was a separate sign-up form for VA Beach that included hotel room preferences, but we never actually got that one.  We're 6th on the waiting list.  So, we're hanging in at home this weekend.  On the plus side, we don't have to ask the neighbors to cat-sit (I hate to ask because they're sooooo nice, and since we have such high-maintenance kitties) and the DSANV Spring Picnic is on Saturday so we'll likely go to that.  I suspect that weekends from now through the end of September may be pretty full of activities...

By the way, when did my little baby grow up so much to become this long-legged girl??  It's like she stretched out overnight.