Early Mornings and T-ball

We're still having some early mornings with Penny Terrific...she gets up around 4am, and wanders over to the door to wait for me to take her out...while this is wonderful behavior, I could live with it being a little later because once I'm awake, I'm awake for good..Penny comes back in and goes right back to sleep, and I am left with coffee and Quiller (I'm reading my way through these ancient, yet awesome, British spy novels during my early mornings alone)...


This is Penny 2 minutes after coming in from her first walk of the day Tuesday..."HUH...what...go 'way...too early"...


This is taken the same day a bit after 5am...Penny heard the camera come on, but went back to sleep 3.72 seconds later...


T-ball has now shifted into game mode...no more practices...only games...this makes more sense than it might seem to at first as the feeling of competition without any actual competition (everybody fields, everybody hits, everybody runs the bases, nobody gets out) spurs the kids on to pay (a bit) more attention, and to start to play as a team and show team spirit...they warm up by playing catch for a while...here you can see Ben throwing the ball to his friend Joseph...


Coach Murnane gives the whole team a pep talk before the first game begins...


Ben is the middle of the 3 fielders in a row...all showing pretty good stances and readiness...


Ben and his teammates sat in a nice line waiting for their turn at bat...



Here's a picture of Ben talking with his friend Joseph while waiting for their turns at bat, with another friend, Jacob, next to them...



At this point, Ben is at the head of the line, and dons his batting helmet, stunningly a little big on his huge melon...


He gets up to bat, readies himself at the tee


...and smacks the heck out of the ball...I love the heads turned in this shot...his hit went past the line between 1st and 2nd base, which this early in the season constitutes a big hit...YAY BEN!!!


After the next 2 batters, Ben made it to 3rd base, and waited for a team mate to bring him home...the man standing and looking towards 2nd base is Ben's assistant coach, and the other man is the 3rd baseman's father...the 3rd baseman was a little cold and huddled like a frog to stay warm...he (and many others) were consistently distracted by Penny, which would have given our team a distinct advantage if:

1. all of the distracted kids were on the other team (which they were not)
2. we were keeping score or it was possible to get someone out or force errors (which it is not)

Penny got a little chilly and wet in the light rain that was falling the whole time we played (no T-ball rainouts in the ADKs), so Gail draped Ben's coat over her, and she went to sleep...


Ben got a nice hit in the 3rd, and final, inning, and made it to 1st in a blaze of speed, and under cover of some (not unexpected) confusion and mayhem between some of the infielders...ground balls tended to be magnets for all but the most disciplined (or distracted) players in the field, and we tended to get clumps of enthusiastic t-ballers piling up in the vicinity of each hit...there were also coaches at each base to remind runners where they needed to go (you can see the 1st base coach pointing out Ben's destination for him...don't think the players didn't need it...some kept running straight past 1st base towards Tupper Lake, some took shortcuts from 2nd to home (or mom...or Penny), and some ran to field the balls that their teammates hit...

Ben's (and Gail and Penny and I are all) having a great time with T-ball...Ben got his team pictures taken this week, and we signed up for summer soccer, so we've got that to look forward to after this season is over...I'm a bit sad that I'll be missing the next few games while I'm away at Zombie Camp in Missouri, but I'll survive (hopefully!)...