Tyler finishes Softball

I did not ask Tyler if she wanted to play softball. I had hoped that she would never ask. Having two kids in baseball has been hard enough, three seemed impossible. But she did ask, begged me to play in fact. And so, despite my better judgement I decided to let her try it.

It started out a little rocky. The girls were a little rough around the edges. Sometimes they weren't paying attention, the ball would roll right by them and they would be looking off in another direction, or else there would be three of them running towards the same ball. At one point I was watching a ball sail up into the air towards one girl in left field, when she gave a little scream and jumped back away from it. At that moment I thought "so this is baseball with girls!" It was a little like watching t-ball - painfull. Tyler even asked me the first week, "How do I know when to run to the base?" and "what do I do after I hit the ball.?" And I thought she had been watching her brothers play for all these years.

They came together well though. They even got to the point where they could get three outs in an inning. Tyler loved it and had a great season. She is always asking for someone to go outside and play catch with her now. Her favorite position was catcher. I think everyone's favorite position was catcher. All the girls begged to be catcher.

It was busy though. The last few weeks we have averaged 6-7 games a week plus 2-3 practices. I rarely make dinner anymore and sometimes spend an hour to an hour and a half in the car dropping off and picking up kids after school. Thankfully, yesterday was her last game and her team party.

One down and two to go.

Weekend at the Coast

Every year I look forward to Memorial Day weekend and not just because it is a holiday weekend and comes close to my birthday (not that I would be looking forward to my birthday). I look forward to it because it is Four whole days with no baseball or any other committments of any kind. Four whole days that we don't have to be anywhere except wherever we want. And where I want to be is at the beach.

This year I got us a room in Seaside for Saturday night and we spent two days out on the beach. It was a beautiful weekend, mostly sunny and temperatures in the mid to upper 60's, which is pretty darn good for May in Oregon.



We left Saturday morning and drove out to Sunset beach which is an area north of Seaside where you can drive out onto the beach. We just load up the back of the truck with everything we need for the day, lunch, drinks, towels, beach toys and park out on the sand. It's nice not to have to carry a bunch of stuff or walk back to the car at the end of the day with tierd kids.

The kids had fun playing catch. Tyler has been working on her catching.



The boys played football.



And baseball.



We flew kites, of course.





And generally digging and playing in the sand.







Saturday night we walked around downtown Seaside. We had dinner and walked down to the boardwalk.



Then Sunday, we went out and did it all again.









Luke doesn't like me taking his picture, but I took some good ones of him.





I think I need a beach house.

A Poem, on Mother's Day

The Lanyard
by Billie Collins

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past -
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother,

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she wispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift - not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

The Last Pinewood Derby!

And I for one am not sorry to see the last of them. We did go out with a bang though and Cole's car won first place. Danford is quite pleased with himself of course. He has been laboring for the past 6 years to figure out how to build a fast pinewood derby car. Some of them have been pretty fast and others have been disappointing. I really think it is just dumb luck, but he is convinced he has figured out a perfect system and it is all in the wheels and axels. He won't have a chance to test his theory however because this was the last one.

I did not bring my camera so sadly I did not get many pictures, but my friend Heather took some for me. Here is Luke helping with the track. This was a very nice electronic track that we borrowed from a Lake Oswego ward. No one was allowed near it except this guy who was operating it and Luke who brought him the cars and then put them back after each race.

We splurged and bought 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place trophys this year. Here is Cole getting his trophy.



Here is his car which went through a few casualties before it was finished. The wood split when they were cutting it out and they had to start over. It split again when they put the wheels on but it was too late to start over so it had to just be glued. They spray painted it dark green. Danford likes to put a lot of layers of paint on it. At one point it was still sticky and he decided that to get it to dry faster he would put it in the oven - on broil. You can imagine what a good idea that was. It almost ruined it. After they sanded down the bubling mess of paint, they decided that it looked like a camo pattern and they left it.

Here's to being done with Pinewood Derbys!