baseball update and my big boy

Connor's team had an unscheduled practice tonight after the train wreck of a game yesterday. His storming around and temper tantrum before the practice clued me in to the fact that he was really nervous about heading out. We had a long conversation about it. He talked again about how he was the worst one out there. I didn't deny that (because it doesn't matter). But instead I asked him if his true friends were to walk past him on the field, would they laugh at him for being the worst? He reluctantly agreed they would not. Then Al piped up and mentioned about how the worst always has the most room to improve. How does one improve? By going to practice!

My heart was aching for my poor little guys. Baseball was so fun and easy in the spring, and now it's a whole new league. However, I was so so so proud of him for heading to practice tonight, and for being okay with it, even if he was the worst. He went to practice, and he had a good time. He even got to pitch twice!

And, he wasn't even the worst tonight, as he told me after the practice.

Connor, you made me extremely proud of you tonight. You faced a fear head on, and you did a great job. You were able to do something that was very difficult. Nice job. You are growing up to be a fantastic young man. (Now, if you could just make it through the day without pounding on your younger sister we'd be golden).

Baseball

Tonight Connor had his first game of summer baseball. The league started last week, but he was away at summer camp. So, he missed a game. There were a few other kids starting today too. The team has done a great job of stressing that it's all in fun.
I am not so sure that the other team got that same message. Summer baseball is a traveling league. We played against Williston tonight. I think their coaches probably agreed to give them all five bucks for each base they stole. It was insane. Unless our pitcher's foot was entirely on the pitcher's mound, the players were stealing. Connor has just finished his first year of farm league. What that means is that the kids were able to maybe sometimes squeak in a double. Once I saw a triple. Generally though, in farm league, the kids would wait at their base for the kids to finish making tons of errors throwing the ball to the pitcher. Not so in summer league. Those Williston boys scored seven runs each inning. (That's the rule, seven runs per inning then they call it). Once our team was up they pretty much struck out every kid. Thank God for the seven run rule. Four innings took two hours....
Connor did not really have a good time tonight, and that upset me. He was struggling and was really upset and hard on himself. He came to me, holding back tears, saying that he was the worst one on the team. That made me feel really bad for him. I hope that as the season goes on he feels better about the game.

At least he looked handsome:

more camp

Today was Aisling's first day of summer camp. She is riding a bus to Richmond to head to girl scout camp. I remember doing the same thing when I was younger!

She was so nervous this morning she hardly ate anything, but I know she will have a great time.

Thankfully she is going with a little girl from town. They are not super close, but they know one another from GS events and having older brothers! I am glad Aisling had someone to sit with. They are in the same group too, so that should help!
Looking forward to hearing how her day goes!!

Camp

Connor begged us last year to let him go to overnight camp, and we wouldn't let him. We thought he was too young. Given that he was begging again this year, and given that he was a year older, we decided to let him go. He opted to go to Rock Point camp through the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont. This was a great first choice because the director is a member of our church family, and the nurse is his nurse from school.
We dropped him off Sunday at 5:00 PM and picked him up Friday at 3:00PM. Although he didn't write any letters, we were able to catch up with him through the blog. I was at least able to see that he was alive and well! (Camping in the 21st century!)
We heard all about it when we picked him up. He said that the first night was extremely difficult. He cried a lot that night. We also heard it from the camp minister, who told us that came to her that first night and told her "overnight camp was not for him". Poor guy.

He said that after that the nights got easier. Today though, in church, he got very teary listening to one of my favorite hymns. (Peace is flowing). This is a favorite of mine, and one I taught him to play on the piano. He said they sang this at church, and it made him very homesick. I was very happy to hear that he felt a special relationship with that song.
He had some fantastic counselors, and I am so impressed with him for sticking it out and staying the whole week. He clearly learned a lot about himself through that. He's looking forward to going next year. Words cannot describe how proud I am of him. Nor can they describe how much I missed him!
Connor getting his beads during the closing Eucharist. The theme was light. He was reminded that he was the light of Christ. (Is he ever!)


Connor and his awesome counselors! Jordan and Scott. I guess they let him listen to their I Pods each night. (He put one under his pillow each night). He was able to listen to Harry Potter Pod-casts each night. What fantastic counselors! They took a very homesick child and made him feel very comfortable. We saw some of his other counselors today at church, and he was extremely excited!

It was so hard to be without him for a whole week. The girls kept asking me what I thought he was doing at certain times during the day. ("Mommy, is Connor eating lunch now?") I have to say, I was wondering the same things!
Back at home it was a nice quiet week. Not having Connor around certainly made for quiet times. It's funny how just taking away one child can make such a difference. Without Connor here, Aisling and Siobhan played perfectly well. With the three of them, there can often be differences. I have always said that if I had three I would want four. This week really made me wonder about that reality. Hmm.... wonder what God has in store for me with that....


Thanks to everyone at rock point for making Connor feel so comfortable! It was so fantastic to hear him singing the hymns he learned!

At least they're clean!

Last year during the summer, Al and I debated and decided to allow a "pool bath" to count as an actual bath. Soap, chlorine, whatev.... We figured a rinse in the pool was good enough for most days. Besides, where are you even going in the summer anyway? The ice cream stand? Uh oh, better be all clean for the scooper....

This year we took it up a notch. To be fair, last year we did make the kids take an actual shower every few days, it just felt wrong not to. (Somehow it feels important to be clean for church, at the very least!) This year we seem to have slipped in our standards. I noticed the other day that the hair of our beautiful girls was getting, well, gross. We were in the pool at the moment so, being the lazy awesome mom that I am, I decided to let them have another pool bath.

(Notice the bottles of soap and shampoo?)

Yes, only this time they actually took a bath, while in the pool. Why not I say, why not?