The "T" is for Torture

So. Luke started "T" ball today. I've never been quite sure what the "T" stood for. I guess I assumed it was just a nod to the shape of the plastic thing that holds the ball so kids can whack at it. Turns out, in our case, it stood for tears, terrible, and torture. Oh yeah, and tornado.

I must accept some of the blame. I thought we were going to be there right on time; in fact, we pulled into the parking lot of King Philip Middle School at 11:00 a.m. precisely. I guess I should have been clued in by the very small number of cars in the parking lot that I wasn't in the right place. Instead, I unloaded Teo, put him in his stroller, got Luke out of the car, strapped his knapsack of baseball gear onto his back, and headed out into the freezing cold gale-force winds in the direction of the sounds of sports fans in the distance. Did I mention it was cold and windy? Luke was supposed to start T-ball two Saturdays ago, though, and got rained out. He got rained out last week, too. I guess this week they figured they'd better start playing pretty soon or the kids were going to age into the next league. Anyway, we walked past a middle school lacrosse game and all around the ginormous building until we found the baseball fields, a looooong way from where we had parked. There were a million cars, owned presumably by people who somehow knew where the "baseball" entrance of the school was. There were eight teams of three-year olds already wearing their little shirts, at different stages of practice. We were late, and I had no idea which team Luke was supposed to be on. Meanwhile, Luke had started worrying as soon as we came within 100 feet of the fields. He began saying, over and over again, "I just want to watch."

Finally I found a man with a roster and found out Luke was a "Bluejay" and we headed for the little blue sluggers on the far field. The kids were all lined up, and three men were throwing balls into their little mitts and trying to teach them how to catch. Poor Luke was still whining about watching and also probably missed the secret handshake or something. He joined in, though, after some coaxing and was doing really well for about five minutes. I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe this would be different from swimming, which we eventually had to give up on when he wouldn't get in the pool without me.

Then one of the balls thrown to Luke bounced up and hit him, pretty gently, in the lip. He was okay for about 15 seconds, and then he headed over to me in the first stages of a total meltdown. Things pretty much went downhill from there. The other kids ran around the bases. Luke cried and clung to my leg. The other kids practiced hitting the ball. Luke cried and finally, after I basically dragged him to the T, practiced hitting the ball. Then the game started. After every other kid on the team had hit once, I pushed Luke out again and he hit the ball and ran all around the bases, essentially scoring a home run, although it was sort of by default, because, as there were no real "outs" as far as I could tell, the innings ended when every member of one team had been up to bat once.

Then the rest of Luke's team donned their mitts again and headed for the outfield. For one brief moment Luke looked like he was going to run right after them, but then he turned around and the crying and leg clinging began again.

At some point I basically bribed him by saying that I would take him out to lunch at McDonalds if he would play with his team and stop crying. He spent pretty much the rest of the hour crying and saying, "I want to go to McDonald's"--basically, get me out of this hellhole and take me to paradise. I said many other things, too; I basically became psycho Olympics mom--"You WILL play T-ball, and like it!" I talked about how you stay with your team, that even if you're scared, you try to be brave and you stick with your team and try to help them win. I told him I wished his Grandma and Poppy had taken me to play T-ball when I was a little girl. At one point, as Luke begged to leave, I told him that he could go if he wanted to but I was staying and supporting his team. Basically, it was a bloodbath. And my ears were freezing. Seriously, it was like thirty degrees. I also told him that McDonald's was a reward for boys who played T-ball and stayed with their team without crying. Then he really started bawling. It was a proud moment in parenting, I tell you.

The other kids on the team were eating it up; they were slapping five with their dads and hitting the ball like Sammy Sosa. Not one of them cried at any point. They also kept staring at Luke, and then looking at me, too, as if they were thinking, "What's wrong with this kid?" I started to feel like this was entirely my fault, that if only I had some Y chromosomes, my kid would be out there looking like he was headed for the minor league next year, too. The coaches were no help at all, either, so I blamed them too. What about introducing the kids to each other? What about learning each other's names and shaking hands?

After one inning, the game ended. The five and six-year-olds started showing up for their round of torture, and we said goodbye to the coaches and started out on our mile-long uphill trek back to the car. Luke was too tired to walk, so I put him on the cup holder of the stroller and pushed the both of them, while I made Luke take deep breaths and try to calm down. He kept asking to go to McDonald's, and I told him that we'd talk about it when we were warm in the car.

Finally, we go to the car and we all started to cheer up a little, although I hit my head really hard on the door while I was trying to put Teo in his car seat. I talked to Luke about why T-ball was important, why I really wanted him to give it a try, and I told him I'd take him to McDonald's if he promised that next week he would stay with his team and play without crying. I told him I'd take him to McDonald's next week, too, if he played. He started negotiating, saying okay, but he wasn't going to do the catching part. I told him he had to do it all, but that I would practice the catching with him at home so that the ball wouldn't hit his face because he'd know how to catch it before it got there.

Then we ate cheeseburgers and fries.