Time Flies.....

Have gone to a couple of little kids T-Ball games over the past two weeks. Had quite a few good laughs...I had managed to forget about the nose pickers, flower pickers, dirt throwers and butt pickers. The kid that sommersaults across home plate. The bat throwers and the cry babies. The, "I Got To Second Base" Happy Dance. That was the best. There are pictures of course, but it's a sequence of 9 pictures and they don't all want to upload. One picture would simply not do it justice.

I guess I should just come out and admit that there is a little part of me that misses the picking, throwing, crying and dancing from my kids. After watching them play high school athletics, the T-Ball and Farm days of Little League sort of fade into the distance. Those days shouldn't fade. Watching B hit baseballs past the foul poles at age 8, when they didn't set up fences yet because, "Eight and nine year-olds can't hit the ball that far." I have a china cabinet full of Little League home run balls that begs to differ. Rembering B throw a 5 pitch, 3 out inning. One of the outs was a strike out. Watching E break a girls nose at home plate because when she laid down the tag the runner didn't slide correctly and E hit her in the face. Being on the Alpenrose Fields and having E blast a ball all the way to the right field fence...at age 12...maybe 13. 13 I think. Having an opposing teams runner round third, being sent home by her base coach, only to stop half way down the base path, return to third base and inform her coach, "I'm not going home on her, she hurts people." when E stood up at the plate and threw off her mask.

To all of my friends that are just starting their parenting adventures, enjoy freezing your ass off at your kids sporting events. Enjoy the ear shattering band performances, the pee pee dance ballet recitals and the wrong way run touchdown that your son "scores". It may seem excruciating now, but it is so worth it in the end. I'm glad a simple T-Ball game could remind me of that.

It's Been A While...

Judge not, lest ye be judged. I don't even know where this is in the Bible but I've always tried to keep it somewhere in my thoughts. Everyone in my life knows I am not perfect, that I have done things that I am ashamed of or embarrassed about. But I have always tried to own up to these things, apologize when appropriate, change my behavior and move on. I've learned to say, "I'm sorry." and really mean it. To change my behavior so that I don't make the same mistake again. I have learned not to hold a grudge or "hate" people. When you do that the only person you poison is yourself. I just find it strange that the people that preach these same things don't practice them and I am some sort of monster in their eyes. We have all done things that we are not proud of and yet I have become an outcast and an example of what not to do. It's as if I'm the only person that has ever said something to regret, done something wrong, gossiped, stolen or lied. Make me the pariah if you want to, but if you look inside yourself you know that you have no right to pass judgement on me. I am still trying to make up for some of the wrongs that I have done. Some of them I will never be able to make up for and I will have to live with that forever. The people that judge me have no idea how I truly feel in my heart. They are entitled to their feelings of anger, judgement and resentment but I feel an amount of comfort knowing that the only person I have to truly answer to right now is the one I face in the mirror every morning. Some mornings are better than others, but at least I am trying to be better and not busy wasting my time judging and belittling everyone around me.