Susan Senator

I was sitting here in front of Precious thinking I had to start dinner, when up popped this email:

Softball!!
We hope that the rain is going to hold off!! Unless it starts to downpour we are going to attempt to get practice in. Hope to see you all at 6:00

I looked over at Nat who was a parallel boy-version of me, lying on the couch doing nada thing. He seemed calm, his teachers said he’d had a good day, I had an hour or so before I really, really had to make dinner, so I said, “Hey Natty, you feel like trying baseball?”
“Yes!” He shouted and jumped off the couch; always a good sign.

Off we went to the high school, blasting my new Shakira CD which we both love. [I feel a bit embarrassed playing hip-hop from inside a Volvo, taking my kid to baseball practice, but what the the F***, it’s my midlife crisis and I’ll continue to make a fool of myself until I’m done.]

We did not see anyone we knew on the entire field so we just sat on a bench for a little while. I watched the groups who were playing catch, trying to figure out if any of them were Special Olympics groups. Something caught my eye about how one of the groups was having a catch; a grown man with a beer belly and a younger man. The older man seemed to drop every other ball, which struck me as odd. Aha. I walked over, and sure enough, I heard another person say, “I thought there would be more people here,” which is what every SO team says at some point. Still, to be as polite as possible, I figured I would say, “Does anyone know where the Special Olympics team is meeting?” rather than, “Are you the Special Olympics team?” I’m always happy to be part of a SO team, but you never know what stupid issues the general populace might have.

They all had gathered by 6:00, a good dozen grown-ups and one or two teens. These guys could really play. I was the only mom there. Everyone else had come on their own! Total Major League. I had to keep introducing myself as Nat’s Hovering Mother (Has a nice ring to it, anyway.) They started out having a catch, and Nat was really good. I could not get enough of watching my gorgeous smiling boy throw like a guy with those lanky tan teenage arms. I never learned to throw so it’s always such a magical, natural, almost sexy thing watching a guy scoop up a baseball and easily lob it back, really far, totally nonchalantly.

Then they split up and some batted while others caught balls, and Nat completely spaced out. He kept throwing his glove onto the oncoming ball; he just did not get it! It was so bizarre that I could not help laughing. No matter what anyone said, he did not understand what he was supposed to do, but God bless him, he just kept trying, silly-talking his whole way through it. I have to get a good beginners’ baseball book for him; suggestions, anyone? Or, if anyone wants to take a stab at doing a Nat book on playing baseball, please do!

When it came time to bat, it was the same problem. “Raise your arm, Nat!” He would raise the wrong arm, then just lower it. “Put your hands closer,” He put them farther apart. “Stand like this.” He acted as if he had not heard a thing and stood where he was, silly-talking and puppet hand with the bat. Then I tried hand-over-hand and bodily positioning him. That worked okay. He took a swing. He got a hit after the second try! He ran to first base (past it really because he did not know from touching base) with the helmet on and the bat in his hand. “Drop the bat!” I yelled, and he threw it really, really far. Everyone cheered.

The only mistake I made was in yelling, “Go, Sweet Guy!” The coach laughed and said, “There’s no ‘Sweet Guy’ in baseball, Sue.”

I am officially an obnoxious sports mom. At last!