Daniel, Kason, and I were sooo excited to sign Kason up for his first season of Tball! He was all decked out with baseball gear for his birthday, for the past two years we've spent hours playing backyard baseball, and have watched countless Rangers and Astros games together as a family. Kason has been super excited about baseball, but clams up around people he doesn't know so practice and games have been a bit of a trial. Before each game, he gets a pep talk from dad...
and we sing "Engine, Engine #9" before every game to get big K pumped up!
#9 was my number from when I played ball, so Daniel surprised me with picking the same number for little man :). Kason is even one lucky ball player because he has his own personal cheerleader at the games...
You may be wondering how Kason acts during the game since we all know about his shy nature in public and true to form, we have the little guy that plays in the dirt or grass and jumps/wiggles around...
He gets a little bored since each team gets to bat their entire line-up, there are no outs, and no score kept...therefore the game is very slow paced...but exactly what this age group needs.
Batting is an even harder struggle because he walks up the plate and basically just stands there...won't even try to swing. He has hit the ball twice...
and it is so much fun to see him beaming with pride that he smacked it! The stands always go wild whenever he is up to bat because the other parents try to encourage our little slugger to rip it just like they have seen him in practice. I can't even tell you how many dad's I've heard comment on how good of a hitter/fieler Kason is if he just would relax. We celebrate after each practice & game that he at least tried and a lot of days we wonder if we are pushing him too hard, but then we see this...
pure excitement for doing what he loves and we know, he just needs gentle encouragement and he will get there one day! Our little rookie comes alive into a modern day Babe Ruth when he's in our backyard nearly hitting home runs over our fence, he loves to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", and just the other day demanded he go buy himself a Rangers shirt with his own money :).
I told Daniel the other day, I can't wait to share stories with Kason when he's a teenager running home to win the game with the same excitement and determination about the early days when our shy little guy would peak out from his shell and become our little Rookie of the Year!
No comments:
Post a Comment