This may be the only season in which all 3 boys are playing the same sport. Granted, none of them were on the same team, but still....we just had one type of equipment to gather and keep track of.
Heath played t-ball. It was nice that they introduced coach pitch as the season went on. They'd get 3 pitches and if they didn't hit it, they'd still get to hit off the tee. There was never any outs. They would go through the batting order twice. It was nearly always a bit comical and adorable.
His coach gave all of the kids nicknames at the end of the season.....Heath "One Pitch" Willis.
(Every single time he'd hit that first pitch from the coach....
thought I might need to explain it for some :) )
Tate played at a machine-pitch level. He enjoyed it and the coaches were really great at teaching and engaging the boys. His favorite parts were hitting and playing catcher. I found his games the most fun to watch. There were still some nail-biters, but it wasn't super intense. His team ended up coming in 2nd place for the season and he was pretty impressed that he was the first boy in the family to bring home a trophy!
Landon didn't really want to play baseball...he would have much rather played soccer, but we encouraged made him give it a try, telling him it would be good to get more acquainted with the sport so that when middle school PE rolls around he knows how to better catch and throw. And we figure it's always good to do things out of your comfort zone every now and then. He was at the kid-pitch level. This level is considerably more intense than the level Tate was at. Some of these boys really knew what they were doing and some of these parents took it much more seriously! He's usually a pretty joyful and easygoing kid. It was hard to watch him not enjoying himself and being uncomfortable. He struggled with having a good attitude and we had to spend a lot of time encouraging him.....but his team was one of the better in the league and they ended up winning their tournament and bringing home a trophy. That made it a little better.
Sports are great for a number of things, but we are determined to not let it become "everything" to our boys. Sports played pretty significant roles for both Adam and I and gave us so many positive lessons and avenues. But it has become so intense these days and there is an insane pressure to groom your kid to be able to even play at the high school level. It's just not what we want to be about. We do hope they have fun, learn to be a part of a team, challenge themselves, strategize, respect their coaches, find ways to be active, and....have fun. So far, so good.
