T-ball follies

So T-ball is going ... just about as well as I expected.

Kiddo crouches down and plays in the dirt instead of covering second base (or third base. Or the pitcher's mound. Or the outfield). It's probably a minor (league) miracle that he hasn't gotten clonked in the head by the ball. At bat, he swings approximately an hour after the ball has whizzed past him. When the tee is set up, as opposed to a human pitcher, he does actually hit it and run to first, so there's that. But when he isn't running the bases, he isn't paying attention.

He did tag one kid out at third, to be fair, a momentous event. I was too shocked to cheer.

We'd hoped getting the glasses -- in which he looks quite dapper, incidentally -- would help focus him, in that he could, literally, focus. But seeing the field more clearly doesn't seem to make him any more interested in looking at it. And he's just as likely as before to have a meltdown if he gets tagged out, or doesn't get to be catcher, or sees a teammate getting tagged out, or basically there are lots of meltdowns.

I know there are Major League Baseball players who have ADHD (for instance, Shane Victorino), but I'm feeling fairly confident in predicting that kiddo will not be one of them.

Our friend M. points out that we should let him play for as long as he wants to, then be done when he decides he's done, which is fair advice. But I have to admit that every time he has a meltdown or starts digging in the dirt instead of covering second, I am secretly thinking growl, because I called it.

He does more or less seem to be enjoying himself, and he'll definitely enjoy the end-of-season ice cream trip, so there's that.

Anyway we'll keep helping him figure out the thing he's actually good at, and once he's got that, I expect he'll finally find that focus.

The winter of everyone's discontent

There cannot be more snow coming. Seriously. I am in denial because our patio set is caked in white and my poor garden gnome is buried up to the top of his hat and there is no more room for snow in these parts, so it's just going to have to go somewhere else because I said so. The kids had two snow days and a delayed opening last week. At this rate the school year will be extended until Aug. 30.

The best part about driving home from work in the snow? I mean, aside from the 5-mile-per-hour rate of speed. Definitely how you can't even see the lanes anymore and you keep behind whoever's in front of you because you figure they must be in a proper lane, and if they're not, there's two of you doing it so it's a lane now, right?

Punxsutawney Phil, you are not beloved in New Jersey this year. A certain restaurant in the area is jokingly advertising fried groundhog on their billboard. At least I think they're joking.

Spring will be a nice change of pace. Sunshine. Flowers. T-ball. Um.

Yes, we signed kiddo up for T-ball. I have expressed my reservations, though not in front of kiddo. Team sports are not recommended for ADHD kids -- they're likely to get sensory overload and shut down, or forget whatever it is they're supposed to be doing, or miss social cues from their teammates as well as signals from their coach, or overly freak out when they screw up, or any number of other things that would make them less than stellar team players. Every other family in our informal moms group has said they tried signing their son up for a team sport, and it was a disaster.

Individual sports, in which the child is basically competing against himself, is a better bet. Hence why kiddo takes karate. One of the other kids in our group fences. Swimming is also good (just ask Michael Phelps) and I would think track would be too (because running comes quite naturally to these kids).

Still. Our friend M. points out that this is the year to get kiddo started in baseball, if we're going to do it at all. And T-ball is very low-key. And DH, who knows something about baseball, would love to have some father-son bonding over pitches and catches.

So we signed kiddo up and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he'll do great. DH says he has a nice even swing, and that's something that can't be taught. Maybe I'm just being Mommy Chicken Little here.

If he hates it, he can drop it. He'll have an out. And by extension, so will we.