MOM! You SUCK!

Kevin and I have started playing in a co-ed softball league this summer and we're having a blast. It's on Friday nights and usually Jordyn babysits for us, but her social calendar has been filling up, which means that we've been dragging our 2 boys to the park with us for the past couple of double headers.

For most of the time, Liam and Owen pay ZERO attention to the game. They're off climbing the bleachers or playing kick ball on one of the empty ball fields. But, occasionally they will watch from the sidelines and chant Go Mommy Go Daddy Go Mommy Go Daddy, obnoxiously and incessantly.

Mind you, before joining this league, it's been some years since I've swung a bat. SOME YEARS, like 17 or so. I'm a little rusty. Fielding is fine. Batting, for whatever reason, not so fine.

Anyway, during the off chance that our boys were actually watching us play one night, I got up to bat. And I struck out. Looking. For those of you who know baseball, it's one thing to strike out swinging, which means you're actually trying to hit the ball but you failed. It's another thing to not even try to hit the ball and have the third strike called on you. Which is what happened to me. Oh, and did I mention it was the third out? (In my defense, I thought that pitch was too flat for slow-pitch, which needs an arc to it, but whatever).

No sooner do I get called out do I hear Liam yell from the sidelines, very loudly, I might add, "MOM! You SUCK!"

Thanks, Liam. I appreciate that. As if striking out in slow pitch softball isn't humiliating enough.

Of course I, and my entire team, absolutely CRACKED UP when he said that, because it was really pretty funny. It makes me laugh thinking about it.

Yes, later on that evening I explained to him that while dad might yell that to Pudge Rodriguez or Brandon Inge on the TV (minus the MOM part), we don't say that to people in real life (all I need is for him to yell that at one of his t-ball teammates, Oy! Vay!)

You'll be happy to know, that since then, I have adjusted my batting stance and have improved my get on base percentage. Now, if I could only hit it into the outfield once and a while.