Baseball

Saturday was a busy day. My 7 year old had a baseball game at 10am. That meant we had to be at the field between 9:15 and 9:30 to help set up the field and do warm ups. I took my 7 year old and my husband came later with our 5 year old.

I'm the official scorekeeper for my son's team. I had no idea when I volunteered what scorekeeper entailed. I thought I would simply make a note of the score at each game. But that would be too easy. I was given an official score book. Inside it is filled with some kind of funky geometric shapes carefully spaced on tiny graph paper. It also has numbers everywhere.

I wasn't able to attend the one night of training for scorekeepers. I wanted to attend, but the 5 hours notice wasn't enough for me to get my husband home in time to watch the kids. And no, I'm not still bitter about that. I mean only a month has passed since then. Why would I still be bitter?

So I keep score the best I can. I write down all the players names and numbers and then copy what the scorekeeper for the other teams writes. This keeps me busy the entire 2 hours of the game. Did you get that? 2 hours?!

On Saturday, my 7 year old caught a ball with his eye. He was ok, but crying a lot and wanted to go home. I couldn't really do much to comfort him because I was busy making up a score. After some ice and some candy, he was feeling better and went back in the game.

My 5 year old's T-ball game started at noon. I took my 7 year old there (we showed up late because his game wasn't over till 12:15). My 7 year old found some rocks to play with along the sidelines. A toddler saw him playing with the rocks and wanted to play too. The toddler picked up a rock and threw it. My 7 year old started screaming and blood was running down his head. I rushed him to the car and after a few minutes, I finally discovered that it was a lot of blood, but a small cut and not very deep. Luckily we still the ice from his eye catching the ball in the last game and put that on his head.

He was still very upset and hungry so I took him home for lunch. I think I got to see my 5 year old up to bat just once in his very first T-ball game. My husband said he took pictures, but I haven't seen them yet. He looked so cute in the uniform. T-ball is a very cute sport and I remember from last year, that it's very fair.

There is another baseball game tonight. This time I get to bring snacks for the team, make up keep score and watch my 5 year since my husband will be at work. I hope I can manage to survive the 2 hours without a trip to the ER.

A Miracle Recovery

In case you are wondering, we finally did make it to the zoo on Friday. Here is a pic of my son at the lion's cage. The lion is sleeping right in front of the window. You know what they say, "Let sleeping lions lie!"

Yesterday my older son had a T-ball game. As I mentioned before T-ball is very fair sport. This time my son and another child on his team were racing for a ball that was hit into the outfield. The other child got the ball and my son got a bloody elbow. Luckily it was the last inning of the game. He was crying and saying how he needed to go home right away and put ice on it. He needed a bandaid and an ambulance etc... Kids can be so dramatic!

It was bleeding. I cleaned it off and we got a bandaid, but he still wanted the ice, and he insisted it was broken. So I said that we were going home and he could put some ice on it. As soon I pulled into the driveway, my son announced that his elbow was now heeled. He was in a hurry to go play with the boy next door. It's funny how easily kids can get "hurt" and just how easily they are "healed."

The moral of the story is...

I wanted to get my son excited about playing T-ball. I reserved a book at the library called, "The Big Tee Ball Game." I read it to him this week. It's about a T-ball team that is playing an undefeated T-ball opponent in the "The Big Game." One child wants to win so badly that she puts some gum on the tee so that when the other team hits the ball, the ball doesn't move off the tee. In the end, she confesses and the other team still wins. But everyone is happy that she told the truth and winning is not the most important thing. So after finishing the book, I asked my son what he learned from this book. His answer was that she have used glue instead of gum. Another proud parent moment :S

Weekend Stuff

This weekend was good and bad. I didn't get a chance to write mostly because my Internet connection still wasn't back to normal yet. Hub spent a lot of time (and some money too) fixing it this weekend. I don't know exactly what he bought or the details of what he did (although he did try to explain it a few times), but he had to drill a hole in the wall and crawl under the house. While under the house, he found signs of an animal coming into the crawl space. Maybe we have a mouse or a squirrel. I wonder if I can charge them rent or at least claim them as dependents next year? Hub also found an opening by the drainage pipe where the animal(s) are likely coming in. So now he gets to go back later and cover the hole. He also did something with some wires down there and now the Internet works again! :)

On Saturday the weather was great. We went to the Tulip Festival about 45 minutes north of here. It was beautiful!

My son had a T-ball game later Saturday afternoon. T-ball is a very fair sport. Everyone gets a turn to hit the ball. Each child can take as many "practice hits" as they need. Once you do hit the ball, you only run to first base unless you are the last hitter for the team, then you always get a home run with the bases loaded. Building sandcastles during the game is optional. Since each player gets a turn, and there are no outs, the team with the most players wins. This time my son's team had 8 and the other team at 6, so we won!

Sunday it rained in the afternoon. We went to the Botanical garden in the morning. The kids ran as fast as they could down the path and we missed most of the flowers. After that we stopped by a nursery to buy some plants for our annual vegetable garden. I don't recommend going to a nursery immediately after the Botanical garden. It was very tempting to buy way too many plants! They all looked so nice at the Botanical garden and they look easy in the store. It doesn't matter that we can't control the plants that we already have and that I have a record for killing 75% of the plants that I buy. Still, somehow I managed to buy just the vegetables that I came for, but I did make a mental list of everything else that I will need to go back and buy before the summer is over ;)

By lunch time, the clouds had moved in. So right after lunch it was a race with the weather to get the plants in the ground. A few sprinkles helped us to keep a good pace. I wish I had a fast forward button so I could already enjoy the vegetables! This year we planted corn (no success with this in the past), tomatoes (got lots last year), pumpkins (got 2 last year), broccoli (first time trying this), cabbage (first time with this too), green beans (we got about 3 beans last year), and I already forget what else. That's ok, surprises are fun! There are also lots of strawberries that we planted last year. They are doing really well and starting to invade the rest of the garden. I even saw a few green berries starting to form in the flowers :) Now if only I can get to the strawberries before the slugs do. The problem with the slugs is that they cheat! They go for the berries even when they are green, so I don't even get a chance to pick them before the slugs do. We tried some kind of anti-slug fertilizer mix this year. Hope it works!

On another note, I wanted to give you a "coupon shopping update." I went to the store on Friday to take advantage of a sale where you had to buy $25 worth of one set of products and $25 worth of another and then you got $10 back plus 4 movie tickets. Since movie tickets cost about $9.50 each here, I thought $40 for 4 movie tickets plus $50 worth of food was a great deal! Of course I got lots of other things and still only paid $43 and then got the $10 off my next order, plus 2 more coupons for free milk and then 4 movie tickets. So here's the total for net $33, 4 movie tickets, 4 gallons of milk, 3 dozen eggs, one bottle of local wine, 4 boxes of cereal (don't laugh!), 6 salad dressings, 5 barbecue sauces, one loaf of bread, 2 packages of kraft cheese, 2 big boxes of eggo waffles, 1 box of cookies, 1 bottle of shampoo and 3 boxes of nutri grain cereal bars. Not too bad :)

Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day! So what did you do in honor of earth day? Did you remember to bring your reusable bag to the grocery store? Did you bring your own mug to the coffee shop? Did you walk somewhere that you would normally drive? Did you switch to energy efficient light bulbs? Or maybe you cleaned up some litter around your neighborhood like my kids did. The kids have been complaining about some trash around the bus stop in our neighborhood. Once I suggested that if they don't like it, they should do something about it and clean it up. Every day since then they have been asking when we will clean it up (kids don't forget anything!). The weather hasn't exactly been cooperative. I mean what mother isn't excited about the idea of her kids picking up cigarette butts and used straws off of the streets with cars driving by? But soggy cigarette butts out of the mud and straws from puddles is where I have to draw the line! The sun is still shining and it's Earth Day! So today we took a plastic bag with us on our walk to the bus stop and picked up any litter (yes lots of cigarettes and a few straws) we found. It wasn't a lot of trash (didn't even fill up the bag) but I think it's important for the kids to start learning and doing things that help the Earth. So next time you want to save some glass bottles, go for a keg instead of a six pack ;) It is Earth Day after all!

Now back to your regularly scheduled "The Cookie Jar" blog. Today was a fairly quiet day in my house but that is all about to change. This is the calm before the storm. I get to make dinner, feed the kids, get them changed and ready to go to T-ball practice. Then come home and give my kids a bath and get them to bed all in the course of 2 hours. Yup, you've probably seen this weekly event before in the Olympics where parents (yes, we like to give the dads a chance too) compete to see who can accomplish these tasks the fastest. You score points for best times and smiling kids and lose points for whining and crying (doesn't matter if its the kids or the parents). Bonus points can also be scored if you manage to call of your children by their correct names and they have clean clothes too. Competition gets tough when the phone rings, the washing machine starts leaking, and you forget that it's your turn to bring snacks to T-ball, -20 points, Ouch! Don't worry, my turn to bring snacks was snowed out, Safe!