I Need to Buy A Cup

Baseball season has started. This is my 6 year old's second season. He is no longer an itty bitty T-ball player. He is a great big baseball player. OK, so it's coach pitch. And the kids get 5 strikes before they're out. But still, it's a lot tougher than baseball.

And the point is that his a great big baseball player now. I thought he could wear the same uniform as last year. The shirt still fits. The socks still fit. The pants kinda fit. I knew that he outgrew the cleats. We bought new ones 2 weeks ago. The one thing that I didn't have him try in advance was the cup. And it didn't fit. He is supposed to wear it for practice and definitely for the first game tomorrow (don't worry, tomorrow's game is already cancelled. Why is it cancelled? For snow! What? You think it doesn't snow in Seattle?! OH, you must be from Seattle if you think that!).

I helped my son get dressed for practice. I dug the cup out of the bottom of his underwear drawer. I helped him step into it and pulled it up so the band was around his waist. He started squirming. He couldn't breathe. The cup had cut off circulation to his body. He was turning blue. It was too tight! There was no way he could wear it. So I helped him take it off and finish getting dressed. I thought, "I'll have to buy one before his game this weekend."

On Friday I was running errands. "Buy a cup" was on my list. I went to 2 small sporting stores. One had cups, but only in adult sizes. Those were more like a shield for my 6 year old. The other didn't have any. Then I went to Sports Authority. At first I only saw adult sizes in the baseball section. These were $30-$40! And yes, still way too big. But this was Sports Authority. If they didn't have cups for 6 year olds, where was I going to find one?! I saw a young kid working in the store. A male young kid. I said, "I need to buy a cup."

He looked at me funny.

"For my son. He's 6."

Then he wouldn't look at me anymore. He pointed to front of the store and mumbled something about the front wall. His face was getting red. I'm not sure if he was laughing at me or I had embarrassed him. Either way, I hurried to the front of the store to continue my own embarrassment.

I found the wide selection of cups in the front of the store by the free weights. Who knew to look there?! Then I had to find the ones marked, "youth." I wasn't sure what size to buy, but I knew the one I bought last year didn't fit and it said "20-26" on it. I figured that I needed bigger numbers. (This must be what's it like for a dad to have to go shopping for his daughter's training bra.) I sorted through a few packages and decided on a youth size "large." I know you must be thinking the same thing that I'm thinking.

"How can a 6 year old be a size large?" In the youth sizes, they had small or large. No medium. The next set is "teen" and then there are "adult." So size large it is!

My son tried it on yesterday. It was a little big, but much more comfortable than the first cup. And this time he could breathe while wearing it.

Whew! And it was $15, not $30 :)