We had a lot of fun today. It all started when I took the kids to the local ball field to see some of the little league action there. We hear them playing all the time because it's only about three blocks away and they use one of those loudspeakers to announce the start of the games.
Aidan has been showing an affinity for sports (proclaiming he intends to play baseball, soccer and basketball). He's 5 so it seemed like a good first move would be to let him see other kids playing and watch how he reacts. Would he shy away from the idea of other kids or would he dive in?
He was in his element. About 20 minutes into watching some 6-8 year old boys competing, he was asking me if he could play now. He was exhilarated about it!
We had to go but I found out that despite this season ending, a new one would start in January and sign-ups would be accepted in about a week.
Aidan was bummed about this news. He was literally ready to jump into the next game. Alas, they only had two games left in the season so he would have to wait. As a consolation, we decided to go check out some mitts and maybe buy a couple (one for him and one for Aren) and do some ball tossing in our yard. This was a good idea. So two hours later we were leaving Play It Again Sports with gloves for all the boys (me too!), one brand new baseball and a van full of excitement as the boys looked forward to testing out their new gear.
You know that scene in Sandlot where the kid first arrives to town and he's wearing the goofy, very un-baseball-like hat? He is befriended by the star player who deftly points it out to him and gifts him a new chapeau, saving him further embarrassment.
Well our little Sandlot moment began with a cute version of that, only the the object was on the other end of the kid, which I'll illustrate in a moment.
We had to move our ball-tossing operation to another part of the neighboorhood because the girls decided they wanted to head over to the lake and toss bread at the fish. Not wanting them to go alone, I convinced the boys we could just as easily play catch there. As long as that was the case, they were in so off we went.
A few throws into it, with the girls on their fishing expedition a few feet away, I took a glance at Aidan, beaming with the ball in his glove. He was emoting baseball in every way, except one glaringly obvious point: his shoes! How 'bout them boots, eh!?
That wasn't going to be the only parallel to the classic kids movie.
No one who has seen it will ever forget the ball-devouring dog, that bull mastiff of unimaginable proportion.
Well we had our own nemesis. I noted it when we first arrived at the park and all the indications were there in plain sight. We should have just moved to another area, but choice throwing locations were limited, away from the water.
I immediately regretted it when, about 10 minutes into the fun, I tossed the ball to Aren. He's a year younger (4) and quickly getting the hang of catching, but doesn't quite get the idea that it's okay to reach out and meet the ball, like Aidan does. So when I mis-estimated by a few inches and he missed it, we all three watched as the whole scene cut to slow-mo and the only ball we had made it's way down hill straight for utter and complete catastrophe. "Nooooooooo!!!!", we all exclaimed. THE SEWER!!
The boys were crushed. There went a whole day of fun, literally down the drain! Thanks to my handy new EVO Android phone with handy built in video cam, I caught the drama in action...
It wasn't enough that Aubrey had a baseball she could loan us back at the house, or that a new ball or 2 or 10 could be procured tomorrow at the sporting goods store. No, that ball was the one they wanted and they wanted it back now.
What to do? The MacGyver in me pondered various ideas. For a second, I thought maybe the ball had simply rolled down the drainage pipe and into the very lake next to which we were standing. Could it be that easy? Of course not! No floating baseballs (do they even float?). But when I hung upside down over the pipe to see if the ball was even in there, maybe within reach, no ball.
Right then, Amber exclaimed,"I see it!" She had put her head down close to the sewer opening and sure enough, there it was. Dry and lonely, but completely out of reach.
The idea of prying up the iron lid on that thing was conjuring up all sorts of chiropractic images--that was not my favorite first choice.
After a bit of a huddle on the way home, we all decided there had to be a way to extract the boys' Orb of Happiness and so a simple plan was hatched: get something to fish that bugger out of there.
It took some doing. I tried what I thought would be the perfect tool first, a fruit picker we use to use in California to harvest avocadoes from the 5 trees we had in our backyard. Alas, the pole was too long.
In a bizarre moment of delayed serendipity, the right item ended up being one of my lawn rakes that one of the boys had mangled over a year ago and, in so doing, managed to sever the handle in half. The amputation rendered the rake useless to me, but I've been keeping it around so the boys had a rake of their own and left my only working one unharmed.
This shorter handle ended up being perfect because I could fit the entire rake into the drainage sewer and, thusly, fish out the only thing occupying my boys' minds.
Here's a short photo sequence as evidence of my inexhaustible (and yet somehow exhausting?) desire to be a good father (photos by Amber).
All's well that ends well, as they say. I'm just happy this little moment didn't ruin the boys' enthusiasm for the their newfound passion.
Play ball!
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