Spring's presence is marked around here with all sorts of good things like opening the doors and windows, planting the garden, bicycles and mud, blooming trees and flowers, and oh most definitely....ball, bat and glove. This year, one more Soule has joined the official ranks of Little League, bringing our total now up to three players in three different leagues. Just this weekend brought five games. Five games! In two days! Oh my. While I am quite content to sit on the bleachers with excitement, enthusiasm (and knitting needles in hand) the truth is that it can be a rather long stretch of waiting for the little ones not playing the game. Sibling love and toddler cheering only goes so far before the novelty of yet another baseball game wears off.
This, as many of you probably know very well from your own days spent game side, is where the real show begins. With Coach Papa on the field, and a sibling out there too, that leaves me on the sidelines with four busybodies. Busy bodies who would love nothing more that to run out onto said field and play themselves, mid-inning. Or....run into the parking lot to play in the dirt piles. Or....be anywhere but at the game, sitting, waiting. We score when there's a playground nearby the ballpark, but that seems to be a rare occurrence this year. And so I find my job as baseball Mama being equal parts sideline cheering and sideline entertaining (heavy on the sideline entertaining).
Getting everyone out the door for a game (or dance class or lesson or whatever the case may be), there's a Mama roadblock, at which the most important questions are asked of all, one-by-one as they get into the car, 'did you brush your teeth?' 'where are your shoes?' and 'got your backpack?' (Everything else? Not so important.)
But oh, those backpacks are essential. (We love these - just the right size for such a thing.) Everyone has their own and has placed in it just what they'd like to do - books, marbles, cards, Mad Libs, horses and on and on. And in my basket? The water bottles and the all important - very important - snack bags (and some knitting too, because I am an eternal optimist).
Miss Annabel, I noticed at the very first game, was in need of her own little bag of goodness. Too little to carry her own backpack of course, I decide to make it an easy little drawstring that I could put inside my own basket. The fabric is a small stack of Cape Ann by Oliver and S, that I quickly sewed together for the outside of her bag. A lining, some ribbon for a drawstring, some of her favorite things to play with, and voila! A bag for everyone.
As early in the season as this may be, I'm feeling a small victory with the peace and entertainment happening on the sidelines. Bring on the baseball!
