The two older boys are in baseball right now, and I am surprised at how nervous I get when they are up to bat or on the pitching mound. Dominic was standing near me while we were watching Michael's game last week, and in the middle of an inning the coach asked Michael to take over as pitcher. As Michael started pitching, Dominic tells me, "Mom, mom, Michael is the pitcher!" As I was trying to keep my eyes on the game, I just nodded and said, "Ya, ya, I know." Dominic immediately replied, "But mom, shouldn't you be doing this?" I didn't know what he meant, so I quickly glanced at Dominic who was apparently showing me what I normally do when Michael is pitching... He had is hands in a prayer-position way up by his mouth. I had to laugh out loud! I never realized it before, but that is the nervous stance I take when one of my boys is pitching or at bat. I guess I just do it as a nervous habit, although sometimes I really do start praying to help calm my nerves and hopefully to send some graces in my boys' direction to help them do well. How funny that my 5-year-old noticed that...I hope no one else noticed! Now that my kids are in sports, I am starting to realize why my mother used to obnoxiously yell and grab my leg when I sat next to her at my brothers' wrestling tournaments :)
Nathanael is saying all sorts of funny things these days now that his vocabulary is taking off like wildfire. Just this morning he was playing with the bikes in the garage and I said, "That's a bike, can you say bike?" He looked at the bike again and confidently said, "A butt, a butt." :) And last week, I was filling up water balloons outside for the older boys while Nathanael was playing in the rocks nearby. He came over to me making a perfect buzzing sound. I thought to myself, how sweet, he must have seen a bumblebee. Then I hear Dominic yell, "Mom, Nathanael's holding a bee!" So I drop my water balloon that I was filling and quickly run over and slap the bee out of Nathanael's hand. It falls to the ground, still very much alive, and Nathanael reaches down to pick it up again. "No, no!" I yell as I quickly stomp on the buzzing bee with my shoe. Then, of course, Nathanael starts to cry. How he escaped from being stung is a miracle to me, but apparently kids never escape their moms ruining all their fun. :}
Every night around the dinner table, Paul always asks the boys the same question: "So, boys, what did you learn today?" The boys have come to expect it now, and they usually are prepared with an answer about something that they learned in school that day. Well, a few weeks after Paul broke his wrist, he asked the boys that same question at dinner time. Joseph and Michael both gave one of their usual responses about leaning how do do long division or learning a new spelling word or something of that sort. And then it was Dominic's turn. Out of the blue he replied, "40 is too old for snowboarding." Everyone broke out in laughter... I guess I kids really do learn from their parent's mistakes! :)
Oh, Maria, love the post. First, I get nervous during my kids' sports performances. My colonel attending one of the wrestling meets that my oldest boy was in told me the next day he could tell Michel was mine from my actions. Opps! Oh, and last night, I didn't breath as Madelle kept messing up while she was at bat. I finally let out a sigh of relief when she walked to 1st. She should have struck out but the ref call her two strikes as balls. The mom next to laughed at me. The other two stories had me laughing out loud. Wonderful memories.
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