A pretty busy few days, anchored by kid sports. So we’ll start with those and add in the other fun things that were a part of our weekend.
First off, C’s kickball season came to an end Thursday night. You may recall her team was in a three-way tie for first place going into the final game of the season. All three teams were scheduled to play teams with worse records, so we were stressing about how the league would break the tie. Turns out that wasn’t an issue as two of the teams, including C’s, lost their last game. C’s team was terrible through the first three innings. They kept kicking the ball in the air, in the infield, and their opponents had two girls who could catch. So they were down something like 15–2. They made a furious run late, cut it to four runs, and had the bases loaded with two outs in the 6th. But the wrong part of the order was up and the season ended with the top of the lineup two spots away. C, who kicks second, kicked her team-high 7th home run of the season earlier in the game. Would have been really nice to get her up for one more kick…
Onto soccer. L’s team has been struggling this season. They’re a fairly small, young team and it seems like the bigger kids they played against last fall all hit growth spurts while her team all stayed the same size. They’ve been getting manhandled at times, and have a few really ugly results. But, when they play a team that is more their size, they do well.
L started the season slow, with only one goal through the first three games. But she was also figuring out how to adapt. She saw that against the bigger kids, she was struggling to get close enough to the goal to shoot. So she started taking the ball wide and then sending crosses through the box. Sadly often her teammates didn’t know to be there for the pass. Every now and then she’d pick the right moment and right teammate and would get an assist on those crosses.
They played a makeup game Thursday night and got trounced 10–1. L scored the only goal. Saturday they finally faced a team that appeared to be mostly second graders like them. L’s team was up 3–2 at halftime – she scored one of those goals and assisted on another – before things got nutty in the second half. L scored two goals in about 45 seconds, made a sweet assist on another about two minutes later, and knocked in two more before the game was over. They ended up winning 10–2 in what was “The funnest game I’ve ever played in!” according to L. She scored from right in front of the goal, twice from outside the penalty area, once on a follow of a miss, and a third time when she slalomed through the defense and poked it in as she was falling down.
Once she lost her shoe and was sitting on the ground trying to put it back on when the ball came to her. She hopped up, with her shoe in her hand, and began cutting through the defense. She held the ball for about 10 seconds, lost it, got it back, and controlled it for another 10 seconds. All while holding her shoe. It was very funny.
OK, onto the other weekend activities. Saturday night we went to an Indianapolis Indians game. It was a gorgeous night for baseball. The trip was made even better as we were sitting in S’s company’s suite. So free food and drinks, and great seats above home plate. The girls got to take a picture with the Indians’ mascot. M was all proud because she got his autograph earlier in the week when she went to a game for a school field trip. She’s, like, totally an expert on getting mascot autographs now. I got to meet the president of the team. He saw my Royals jersey and started telling me about his one year in the Royals organization back in the early 1970s. It’s a pretty solid way to watch a game.
And yesterday one of the girls’ new cousins got baptized. L had to wear a dress for the third time in a month, which is some kind of post pre-school record for her. There were four babies getting baptized and one of them was related to a family who used to live near us. They had a son in L’s preschool class and their daughter went to St. P’s for two years with M. They were pretty tight back then, but hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since they moved. Before the ceremony began I asked M if she noticed A standing over there. Her eyes got big and she said, “Is that really her? She’s so tall now!” And then she refused to go over and say hello to her. Kids are weird, man. I was going to drag her over after the ceremony but the families all split into different parts of the church to do photos and I lost track of them before I had a chance to force the issue.
Although there are two weeks left in the school year, this was kind of our last weekend of the spring. Next weekend we put the boat in the water and officially open up the lake house for the season. Time freaking flies.