Go! Fight! Win!

Or at least stop crouching down to play in the dirt. Maybe glance at the ball occasionlly. Hey, at least we know the coach knows his name. We hear a lot of "Nico, pay attention! Nico, watch the ball!" Yes, we have entered the world of preschool sports. We've got the uniform, the glove, the bat, pretty much everything you need to play t-ball except a kid who has any desire to actually play the game.

I mean, it's not as if we are forcing him, stage mom style, into the sport. He asked to play. And he honestly loves going to the games and practices. He just couldn't care less about the sport itself. When he runs to a base, all he wants to do is talk to the kid from the other team playing that base. "Hi, I'm Nico. Did you know I have a t-Rex named Kranken? He's huge but he's not real. Well, he's real but he's not a real dinosaur. Real dinosaurs don't exist anymore. They all died. What? Run where? Third base? What do you mean run? Now? Oh, ok I 'm running. Oh, hi! My name is Nico. That's a cool mitt. I have a blue mitt. My dad got it for me. Wait, I have to run again? I just ran! Run home? Ok, ok. Oh, hi coach!"

When his team is playing the field (I'm sure there's a term for that, but really I am if anything less interested in the sport than Nico), all Nico wants to do is play in the dirt and ask every 2.5 minutes if it's time for snacks yet. Guess he inherited his parents' complete lack of interest in sports.  Ok, to be fair, Sam does watch soccer, and we usually know when the Longhorns are playing and whether they won.  We just don't generally watch the games.  I can't decide whether we should feign more interest in baseball to get Nico motivated to play more wholeheartedly or just be glad he's having fun making friends and infuriating the coach.

At any rate, today was picture day.  Several of the teammates were late, but they posed for team pictures anyway.  Then the players hung out and talked, which was cute and vaguely reminiscent of professional players waiting in the dugout for their turn at bat.

Apparently, Nico got into the spirit of posing, so he turned and threw me a smile when he went up to bat. Then he proceeded to knock the ball straight past third base and jog morosely to first base only to quickly start up a conversation.

Meanwhile, Linc and I cheered from the sidelines.  Linc loves to clap, loves to watch the kids running around, and only occasionally gets upset that he can't run out on the field and join them.  The good news is that the weather is perfect right now, all of the kids are adorable, and there's something comforting about being out there on a Saturday morning doing something so darn typical.  Our tendency to be not normal started long before Linc was born, but every now and then we play the part for an hour or so before we head home, turn on a musical and dance around the house.