Catching up from my last post: The kids finished their virtual school year at the beginning of June (both getting As in all subjects :o). Honestly, that's been it other than the subject of this post: Ball.
After not having any organized sports for the kids last year except golf lessons, it's been quite a change of pace to have so much ball this summer. Both kids are on baseball/softball league and tournament teams. Naturally, they play their league nights on opposite days, and have their tournament team practices when the other is playing league games. Nick and I are both assistant coaching the league teams, so there's an additional level of effort out there. It's my first time with any coaching, and it's been fun getting to know Iris's 10U teammates and cheering them on. She plays on the 8U tournament team, so she's getting higher-level experience that she's able to use in her tournament play.
This past weekend was our first time with overlapping tournaments. Felix had a tournament in Menasha, with his first game on Saturday morning. We stayed overnight, so it was an easy up and drive for us to the fields. We've had a streak of hot (90s), dry weather, and this weekend continued that trend. Yay for canopies! It would have been brutal otherwise.
It again showed that Felix's team is a bit behind some of the other team who played last season, instead of cancelling everything because of COVID like our organization did. They're just a step behind, a step too slow, a step inexperienced. I'm not sure how or if they're going to make that up... They lost their first game 0-3 and tied their second 3-3 (Felix pitched a couple of innings). That put them 2nd seed in their pool, and they played the last game of the day at 5. They rallied, but couldn't overcome some big hits by the other team and got knocked out of the tournament 7-10. Most of the boys and families were staying at our hotel, and we all had a big unwind after the games. It's fun to get to know the other parents and watch the boys play together. I hope that experience helps them click for their next tournament.
Regardless of what happened in Felix's tournament, I was taking Iris to her first softball tournament in Waupaca early the next morning. We started off the day on the absolute wrong foot when she spilled her hot chocolate on her lap as I was about to pull out of the parking lot. I was more concerned about her skin than the state of my car, and we rushed to assess the situation. She got a bit of a 1st degree burn on her thigh, and I applied cold compresses to it right away. (We did get her some burn ointment and it didn't bother her all day - little damage done overall, thank goodness.) I also did my best to clean up her (thankfully black) softball pants and the puddle in her car seat. That put us behind in our schedule, so it was a dash to make it to the field in time for warm-ups (especially because Iris was pitching first). Got there just in time at 9 and took a deep breath. Nick and Felix arrived a short while later. Her team lost their very first game together 0-4 (not too shabby), and then won their next two 9-0 and 14-6, which meant they would play in the championship game at 3:30. Alas, they lost 5-9 to the same team (heck of a pitcher to start the game), and took 2nd. The girls showed a lot of spunk to show up at their first tournament in high-80s sun, play a quadruple-header and walk away with silver medals.
I'm so proud of Iris. In my biased opinion, she was the MVP for her team: she pitched some good innings (most of the balls near the plate), hit the ball every time (even a couple pitched by players and not the coach), and even made caught two fly balls. She also led the team off with a hit to start a 4-run rally after a tough inning in the final game (I could see her getting upset and near tears - she wanted to do more, but many of the girls don't have the play awareness to react to Iris's throw meant to get a tag-out). And she did it all with a hot chocolate burn and her first bad cold in over a year. Such a trooper.
Awesome things: our kids playing well, What We Do In The Shadows (Nick and I now laugh to ourselves with every "Bat!" we hear on the ball fields),
