A BEGINNING AND AN END

Kayla has finished her first year of high school softball.

This week she will begin her final season of Summer Youth League softball.

This...
...is just beginning.


While this:

...is coming to an end. Seriously, how cute is she?

While the high school games are exciting and fast paced, there was something so sweet and fun about those early games when the girls could barely be trusted to run the bases in the right direction.

The utter excitement of just being on the field with other girls was enough to make them giddy. At one game, when the girls were in about first grade, we watched one of our girls make it to second base and, because she was so excited to be there, she threw her arms around the second baseman and hugged her until they both nearly toppled over in a fit of giggles.

Of course there was also the time, that same season, when our team staged a walk out in the middle of a game. There was thunder in the distance and the girls were getting nervous.

"MOOOOOMMMMMYYYY!" The third basement whined.

"You're fine, it's just thunder and it's far away...."

But she was not to be convinced. After a few more rumbles, she threw her glove to the ground and marched off the field.

"I'm NOT PLAYING in a storm!"

Soon the second basement abandoned her glove and followed her team mate. Then we lost our short stop. Within minutes half the team was in tears over the storm moving in.

Which wasn't actually moving in.

It was then that the coaches-slash-dads all threw their hands up and called the game off. Perhaps the only thing worse than losing a game is losing your team.

GAME CALLED DUE TO TEARS.

It's much different now.

Now when bad weather moves in we sit on metal bleachers while our girls swing metal bats, surrounded by a chain link fence, and we listen to our girls say "They better not call this game."

"We totally could play in this." "I hope we get to play in the rain." "Yeah, we could, like, slide in the mud."

While we moms make comments like "If that ump had any sense at all, he'd call this game right now. It's foolish - FOOLISH I TELL YOU - for us to be out here in this weather. Why, I have half a mind to drag my daughter off that field right now."

Except our daughters' wrath at being pulled from a game would be much more painful to endure than being struck by lightning.