As planned, I left work early yesterday to pick up the girls and get them fed in time for Darby to change into her softball uniform and be at warm-ups at 5:30. We did have to make one diversion, which was to hand-off Shelby to my father so she could lay down at his house and ponder her behavior for the day instead of playing with her friends at the ball field. But we'll get into that later.
At 5:30, there is supposed to be a coach present, warming up the girls for the game. However, a couple weeks ago we lost the assistant coach that was doing that, and the head coach hasn't really been getting there early enough to get the girls into a warm-up routine, so the parents have just kind of been having the kids throw balls to one another, which isn't a real warm-up really.
So, yesterday I took some initiative to get Darby warmed-up at least, and I had her stand at the pitcher's position on the field (as she's been playing that position a lot lately) while I threw her some grounders and then ran to first base trying to get her better at getting runners out in that scenario.
Shortly after doing that, one of the other girls asked me "where do I go?" so I put her on first. And then another girl. And another. So before I knew it I had several positions filled out and I was throwing different types of grounders and having them try to throw me out as I ran the bases.
I felt guilty telling the other girls what to do because I'm not a coach and they're not my kids, but none of the parents seemed to mind (though I really don't have time [or the knowledge] to be a steady coach, so don't go getting that in your mind). First baseman, stay on your bag. Outfielder, the short stop is standing right there as your cut-off, why did you throw the ball over her head to throw me out at home when you should have hit your cut-off man?
The little outfielder just kind of shrugged her shoulders at me so I told her I would give her a dollar if she could throw it from the outfield all the way home. She tried and didn't make it. So I told if she had hit the cut-off... girl, I might have gotten thrown out at home instead of making it as the ball rolled gently past the pitchers mound.
But the highlight of my little warm-up exercise was my little embarrassing moment of eating dirt. First base was partially sand-covered, and I was wearing my regular no-traction-on-sand sneakers, which proved to be a painful combination as I slid off the bag and slammed face first into the ground with the full weight of my body. The front of my body was covered with dirt, I got a nicely scraped up elbow, and a good taste of sand. Yummy. But I got up and ran to second, still making it safely as I yelled for the girls to keep the play alive even if I fall on my butt. On the next play I realized that my cell phone got half-buried in the dirt on my impact and was still out there. It took me awhile later on to get all that dirt out of it but it still works. My ex-wife, who was in the stands to witness my folly, told me that the parent reaction to my self-pummeling was interesting. And just think, all this fun and the game hadn't even started yet.
Once it was about game time, I removed myself from the field and let the actual coach take over since he had finally arrived. It is important to mention that I also worked with Darby on her swing a little bit as she struck out twice the last game, which has been unusual for her of late.
As it turns out, the fruits of my labor were split down the middle. Darby did get to play pitcher again, but she had a few fielding mis-cues that were quite contrary to what we worked on, so it looks like we'll need more work. But behind the plate, she did excellently. She had two very solid doubles and a run scored. I managed to capture one of those hits in progress with my camera in sport-mode.
For the first time they weren't beaten outright, as the final score was 3-2 (they usually get run-ruled). So maybe a win is in their future. I explained to Darby, to emphasize the importance of making plays, that she didn't cause her team to lose that game, but that had she made one or two of those plays she missed, she may have prevented one or more of those runs the other team scored, keeping her team in the hunt for a win.
The down-side to not being run-ruled, especially when you are the home team, is that your game can run over the one-hour you get to play while the home team gets their last at-bat. Unfortunately they didn't get on base to have a chance to score and tie it up, but that might have been for the better in this case.
You see, we still had to get Darby to her school at 7:30, and the game didn't end until like 7:09. Even then, her mom had to take her to school while I went and got Shelby from my father's. We did make it to the school on time, though barely.
The school was having a little carnival type thing, which is a fundraiser, where parents have to work the booths. We had to work Darby's booth, a basketball-shoot, at 7:30, and Shelby's at 8:30. I don't even know how to explain what Shelby's booth was (a "cake walk"), but fortunately they were out of cakes by 8:30, so we didn't actually have to work that booth, which was good because everyone was plenty tired.
We did get a chance, however, to talk with the PE coach and Shelby's teacher about her recent behavior and the reason she got a C in reading on her progress report. Turns out she is being contradictingly (for Shelby) shy when she is reading to the teacher, and she is not reading loud enough for the teacher to properly grade her. So we'll have to work on that.
As for PE, the coach called me at work today and explained that instead of changing into her PE outfit in the locker room, Shelby instead was playing around, and even got into someone else's personal belongings. She apparently found a bottle of lotion and got it all in her hair and on the clothing of whoever owned it, which was an older girl if I understand correctly. He said she has been goofing around in the locker room a lot and hasn't been listening very well in general. While the latter was not a surprise, I'm a little shocked Shelby would do what she did with that lotion. If she was still five I wouldn't be surprised at all, but she's seven now and really should be over that kind of thing.
Anyway, because of her excessively bad behavior today, I didn't want her going to the game and getting to play with her friends, so I had her lay down at my father's instead and she got a nice lecture when I picked her up, not that I think that will help much.
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