My Feet and Wiffle Ball

Happy Thursday! Wow-this week is flying by! Today, I am participating, once again, in Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop from Mama's Losin' it .  Every week, Mama Kat posts a few writing prompts, and anyone who wishes to participate can choose one or more prompts to write about, and then link up on her blog.  Click on the button below to visit more blogs, or to join in yourself!  (If you do decide to play along, leave me a comment, and I'll check yours out, too!)


Here is the prompt I chose:
2.) Where were your shoes? Write about an interesting time when you happened to be barefoot. Begin and end your writing with a description of your feet.

It was a sunny, spring Sunday afternoon.  Our family was gathered at my Aunt and Uncle's house to celebrate Mother's Day, and a couple of family birthdays.  (We're big multi-taskers.)    I had on my favorite pair of comfy, Born heeled sandals, which show off my pink toenails, yet hide the fact that my feet could really use some TLC. As we sat on the back deck, soaking up the sun, my Uncle Ron laid a couple of Wiffle Ball bats and some plastic balls in the grass.  You know, in case the kids wanted to play Wiffle Ball, or something.

Soon enough, Little Bit convinced me to bat so she could practice her pitching.  Pretty soon, I was jokingly running to an imaginary base after hitting the hollow plastic ball, so I had kicked off my shoes, and was running barefoot in the plush, green grass.  Ahhhh...I love going barefoot in soft grass.... Not long after, my Uncle had joined in, along with my 64 year old, arthritic Dad, and actual bases were established-a tree stump level with the ground, my nephew's jacket, a plastic bag of sports equipment, and one of my beloved sandals as home plate.  Now my daughter and my Uncle are pretty athletic-and somehow they ended up on the same team.  So very unfair. That left my Dad for my teammate.  We are not from an athletic stock of people.  At all.  Did I mention my Dad has arthritis? That left me pretty much to field all the balls that my uncle and daughter were Wiffling all over the far reaches of the yard.  I was basically a panting, sweating, laughingly complaining mess, and they were beating us badly.  My pleas for help to family members on the deck were politley, although laughingly, declined.  I think they were enjoying my pain...

Finally, we were up to bat, so I could sort of catch my breath.  I was first up  (out of two, LOL), and my daughter was lurking by playing first base.  I hit the ball in between first and second, and took off towards the stump that was first base.  My daughter got the ball and headed back to the base.  I stepped carefully on the stump right before Little Bit arrived.  First base made me a little nervous-remember, I was barefoot, and stumps have a tendency to be, well, splintery.  So, right as I gingerly stepped on the base, Little Bit went to tag me with the ball, and I lost my balance.  I tumbled to the ground in a disgraceful heap, and proceed to roll down the slope beyond.  My loving family, looking on from the deck, errupted in laughter and applause.  Nice, huh?

As a child, I remember falling, and just jumping right back up.  Falling is different as a 35 year old, out of shape woman.  I had to take stock of the situation before getting up.  As I lay there looking at the fluffy clouds (miraculously, there were no stars or tweeting birdies floating in circles overhead), I mentally went through each part of my body-amazed each time I discovered that it weren't in pain.  My laughing uncle came over after a while, and said "Are you okay? Did you twist an ankle or something?"  More guffaws came from the deck as I answered, "I don't know-I haven't gotten to that part yet!"

Anyhow, I was fine, and the game continued until for another 30 minutes or so, until my impatient Grandma decided she couldn't wait any longer to open her Mothe's Day gifts, and we quit.  As we headed for the house, I picked up my shoes, and looked down at my feet, which were now green on the bottom, and even much more in need of some TLC.  Who knew feet could get grass stained? I have a feeling that my daughter and I will both treasure memories of this day for a long time. Memories of Grandpa running (well, walking briskly with a limp, actually) bases, memories of the two dogs running around, trying to herd us as we went from base to base, and, of course, memories of me, tumbling down the hill.  Good times.  Really!

Yeah, that was me...

That woman you saw today at the little league baseball diamonds? You know, the one wearing a zip up hoodie, an ill fitting jacket, a child sized Snuggie and her daughter's multicolored, butterfly Children's Place gloves? Yeah, that was probably me.  Judging by the smiles everyone was giving me, I either looked cute or ridiculous.  I prefer to think I looked kind of cute, but really, there IS a fine line between cute and ridiculous.  (And I've been known to cross it.) But hey, I finally was able to put to good use some of the items in my minivan that collect there because no one ever carries all their stuff inside the house.

Welcome to May in Indiana-where we can have highs in the 80's for three days in a row, and then BAM! The next day, the temperature doesn't even make it out of the 40's. Don't forget the daily Tornado Watches, either! There's something for everyone here; weather-wise, anyhow.

I hope I get something good for Mother's Day, because seriously? I deserve it.  My daughter had a softball game at 9 this morning.  She scored a double play which is really awesome since most of the girls were bundled up so much they could hardly move.  All of us parents-those of us brave enough to not sit in our cars-were bundled up against the wind, clutching cups of concession stand coffee, and trying to force our numb hands to clap when one of the girls actually hit the ball. As midwesterners, we're supposed to be much more hardy than this, but we've been spoiled by an especially warm spring.  Give us a day like this in January, though, and you're likely to see people in flip flops and shorts.

Anyhow, 2 hours later, we crossed the parking lot to field 10 for my son's baseball game.  Tot can always hit the ball, but that's pretty much it, really.  When he plays first base, he's really more of a First Base Greeter, than a first baseman.  He goes to baseball practice to socialize and to climb up the walls of the plywood and cinder block dugout like a monkey until I go yell at ask him to get down.  Today, he was especially not into the game since he had already sat through his sister's game and was freezing, despite the three shirts and jacket he insisted upon wearing.  He pretty much just stood in the outfield and flapped his arms like a bird when his team was not at bat. Which, come to think of it, isn't that unusual, really.  But, he's in first grade, so there's only about 3 boys on each team who seem to really understand what's going on, anyhow.  The rest just run when they are told to run, and pick grass and kick up dirt the rest of the time.

By 12:45, we were all hungry and chilled to the bone from the artic wind.  The only Grand Slam any of us were interested in seeing at this point was of the Denny's variety.  After a quick trip through the McD's drive thru, we came home to warm up. Ahhhh.....it's good to be warm!

The things we do for our kids. (Sigh.) Okay, it really wasn't *that* bad.  The kids had fun, I had a yummy pretzel with cheese, and I'm sure I'll be able to hear out of my frozen, aching right ear again someday.

Picture is from goodshirtbadshirt.com