Brandt and I love playing baseball-especially in the evening when our backyard is perfectly shaded. He was so excited to play coach pitch this year even though he was a little too young-he was looking forward to not having to hit it off the tee. Bryce and I ended up being the coaches and my friend Jessica Ward helped me a ton at practices. We had a fun group of kids but we also had our work cut out for us because a few of them were way too young for coach pitch and a couple of them had never played at all before. Buddy would get so excited for practices but he had huge meltdowns at every one of them-like hitting and throwing things at teammates (and especially at me) when things didn't go as he expected and running away and hiding and crying. :( Games went better for the most part, but he still really struggled and spent some of the games refusing to play part of the time. His favorite position to play was catch-I think partially because of watching Mitch play but mostly because he basically knew what would happen and what he was expected to do with each missed pitch. He definitely does better when he isn't trying to guess what's going to happen next. He was a really great catcher-he rarely missed a ball and between every pitch he had his routine down to brush off the plate after he threw the ball back to the pitcher or while waiting for the next batter to come to the plate. Of course, some of the other boys also wanted to try that position so I had to try to move him around some. My struggle comes with knowing that he has all of the talent and ability to play really well and knowing whether I should push him to participate or give up on it. He WANTS to play and he is so good when he can keep his nerves and excitement under control. For now we will continue to encourage him to participate so that we can also help teach him how to work through his social anxieties and changes in routine and hopefully have some fun along the way.
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