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| "Please catch it. Please catch it." |
I am not a coordinated person. I drop 75% of the things I pick up. My baby being the exception (some how my subconscious knows to try harder when holding that cargo). I trip over things more often than I would like to admit, but, don't worry, I always play it cool. "No, it's okay, I wanted to get a closer look at that tile!"
So needless to say, the other day I had a quite an amazing adventure.
My husband loves to play baseball, so sometimes on Sundays, he fills in on a friend's softball team when they are short on players. I am not much of a sports fan myself, but I can enjoy a live game of anything. So when our friend called asking for a fill-in, we packed up the car and headed to field, delighted to be spending the afternoon lounging outside. When we arrived, one minute before game time, my husband ran out onto the field (wearing a grey shirt and playing for the red team). I laid out an old hospital blanket on the ground and kicked off my shoes.
The first hour of the game was great. My son rolled around and grabbed at the grass. He watched several leashed dogs go by and communicated with them in their native tongue. It was super. Then at one hour and one minute, he started to totally lose his cool.
He notoriously starts this fake crying thing when he is tired. He pretty much just yells. It is so pathetic because he doesn't cry tears, he just makes this loud, drone of irritation. And the only cure is sleep. So, naturally, I let him carry on like this for 10 minutes while he laid on the blanket and I didn't try to soothe him. I got a few turned heads with looks like, "Geez lady, have you no heart?" I looked back with a look like, "Stop sending me messages with your head turn."
Within 15 minutes, he was zonked out(as I knew he would be), as peaceful and as calm as a baby on a blanket, in the park, in the spring, with a light a breeze, at a softball game. With him a-snoozing, I leaned back on my elbows to see which corner of the outfield they had stuffed my husband in (he is a really good baseball player, but apparently a fill-in cannot play a base position). I finally spotted his beard blowing in the wind far out in right field. I turned my attention to the batter, when a ball flew by on my left. As I turned to look at where the rogue ball had come from, I "shit you not" time slowed down. I saw the tacky highlighter-yellow-green-oversized ball heading our way. I reached my left arm out, over my sleeping son's belly, and the ball smacked into my wrist. Leaving purple stitch marks on the bone. I looked down at my kiddo, still lost in a dream, totally unaware that he almost got hit with a ball.
Most of the time, I can't catch a ball when I am trying. Especially when my husband doesn't throw it directly into my outstretched glove. So, to turn, see, and stop a ball in no seconds, and the experience the emergency-situation-super-human-mom-strength was a truly amazing adventure.
