Batter Up!

Second week of sports camp – baseball is in and lacrosse is out. I watched the lacrosse players, much fewer this week, maybe two-thirds of the number they had the week before, maybe half. They’re in one group and not two anymore but they still have three coaches.

On the other side of the field, where M-ito, Momita and I went was filled with kids from 6 years old to 14. There were four age groups and M-ito was with two friends and about 18 other 8-year olds. He had three coaches. They warmed up. The coaches coached and kept discipline. One kid pushed another and the head coach for the group pulled him aside and, within my hearing (I had to listen carefully) told the kid the two rules of play. 1) Don’t push anyone ever again. 2) If a kids calls you a name you come to him (the coach) and he’ll take care of it. Then the head coach pulled the other kid aside and told him the same thing. There were no more problems the whole day. They broke up into three groups, one with each coach and they did 8 minute drills moving from one station to the next every 8 minutes. They learned how to throw a ball, how to pick off a runner, how to do a “4″ slide, and then went to the batting cage for practice hitting. It looked like so much fun I wanted to join in. After another cycle of drills and the snack station where nutritious snacks like seventeen kinds of candy and popcorn in addition to Gatorade and ices were served – they played a game for the last hour putting all that they learned into practice. The coaches said, “good try” to every kid who made a mistake and there was a ton of individual attention.

Every morning I packed a cooler for M-ito with ice, water, cut oranges, and a snack. By the end of the week both of his friends were sending their water bottles home with the cooler and I had to put extra money in the side pocket for them too. Cold water and ice was at a premium.

It was like night and day compared to the lacrosse.

Don’t get me wrong there were some low points.

• The hardest part was watching M-ito strike out each time he was up at bat. I know he hit the ball the day before but it was hard to watch him walk off with his head down. The coaches all gave him “good trys” and I have to say he did a good job of shaking it off.
• On the last day a kid on the other team threw his helmet onto the ground after striking out every time also and the coaches only told him to stop it one time (I thinnk they didn’t see the other times – perhaps because of the heat haze). I would have benched him (even if that would have left them with only 6 players).
• A really good player on M-ito’s team kept playing M-it’s position for him. M-ito was playing third and the boy was at second. He kept wandering the field because he was good and he knew where to go – but this didn’t help M-ito to learn what to do or get him the ball. The coaches missed that.
• I’m ashamed to say this but it’s true. The same good player is a great hitter who had a home run and a double and single. The last time he got up he struck out and the other team cheered. The boy laughed it off – his ego strong enough to survive with ease. He took it as a compliment. Me, I gave him a silent cheer. I was glad he struck out. I told M-ito later, “You see, even the kid who was really good – he struck out too at the end!” It was all I could come up with.

M-ito gave it a 10 – both the coaches and the playing.

I watched him play most of the first morning and all of the fourth and last.

His team won the last game on the last day – billed as the world series of the games and like the kid he is, he jumped up and down with the rest of his teammates, happy to have been a part of the game and winning regardless of how big or small a part he’d played.

Final outcome – I didn’t have to coach. I just watched.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I took out my camera and took some pictures. What else is a Dad-dito to do?

M-ito said he wants to play on both a lacrosse and baseball team. But… he’s had enough of sport camp for a while and is glad to be done for the summer. We think he lost five pounds sweating in the polyester baseball pants. He also has a wicked tan from all that time in the sun, even with sunscreen. When he got home he picked up the first of the Harry Potter books and started to read.

Learning How to Ride a Bike in the City

Step 1: Figure out your child (I’m still working on that).

Step 2: Figure out how your child learns dangerous tasks best. This I actually know.  When M-ito learned how to walk he held on to tables, chairs, and sofas, not letting go of anything or anybody until he could walk without falling. He took a long time to do this and my back is still complaining from the process. But when he walked he didn’t fall down.

Step 3: Training Wheels. Knowing your child is like M-ito – cautious, careful, determined – get him a bike with training wheels. For us the training wheels lasted about two years, perhaps a bit longer. Then M-ito said to take them off. Peer pressure kicked in. At the age of 6 and a 1/2 a good number of his friends were already riding without training wheels so my son said, “take them off.”

Step 4: Pad him up. We bought knees guards, elbow guards, and hand guards, padded him up and set out for a park, expecting to be riding without any problem by the time we got home.

Step 5: Find a park. We used the Bulova park on the other side of our hood because few people go there and there’s a big open b-ball soccer area in the back usually with no one in it.

Step 6: Make a few trial runs. I held on to his seat and ran with him four or five stretches, letting go for a few yards at the end. My son yelled, “Dad-dito, don’t let go!” after each run. He kept his gaze down and had a hard time coordinating his movements and balance while a voice in his head was probably screaming “I’m going to die!” It’s a tough multi-task. Sweat pouring off him, and me, we gave up – him dissapointed in himself and me in myself. What kind of father was I? This should be easy. Two of M-ito’s friends learned in 1 afternoon. They took off and started riding – no pads, no trial runs, nothing. If you don’t understand how this could happen then just go back to step 1 & 2 above.

Step 7: Have a personal aside about your own process when you were a kid. I learned to ride with my brother who was a year older than me. What I remember of the experience was sketchy but contained the following: 1) my brother was there and he already could ride. 2) my brother was a part of the process of helping me to learn. 3) someone (might have been my brother) pushed me down a long driveway while I pedalled like mad. 4) the someone let go and I went a few yards without any help. 5) I knew I could ride on my own in those few seconds because I found my balance. 6) I then crashed and got a few good scrapes on my legs and arms. 7) I crashed a lot but seemed to have gotten the hang of it after that first run. Note: I don’t remember training wheels or instruction – perhpas there was more but I blocked it out.

Step 8: Try again and again. We tried the same process two more times at a closer park – each time we made fewer and fewer runs until the fourth overall attempt (one month later) brought us to a standstill. My son’s downcast gaze told it all. We were both defeated. A leap of faith and skill was needed and neither one of us could provide it.

Step 9: Talk to Mom-ita. Why you might ask? Because Mom-ita knows these kinds of things – or at least how to solve them. So she googled and found an article that gave us the clues we needed.

Step 10: Come up with a plan. We developed a plan. Well, Mom-ita did which she explained to me, which I then implemented by doing the technical work of changing what M-ito’s bike looked like. I was glad to be of use.

Step 11: Tell your child. We sat M-ito down and said we had a plan that would help him get up and going. We said he needed some help and we had just the help he needed. It made him smile with renewed hope. He said he’d try it – meaning what-ever we came up with.

Step 12: Lower the Seat. So we lowered the seat first so his feet could touch the ground easily. Just like those bikes that all the three year olds have now – not available at the time my son was that age – that are made of wood and just glide – they have no pedals. They’re brilliant.

Step 13: Practice. Then we rode everywhere – and I mean everywhere – with the seat lowered and it was better but… we needed to take one more step.

Step 14: Take off the pedals. Oh yeah. That did the trick. With the pedals there were no bruises on the ankles, grease marks on the calves, or scrapes from the pedal’s traction grips. He rode everywhere. I jogged alongside him or walked. He practiced his balance and mutitasking. I could tell the voice in his head that said, “I’m going to die!” while he rode was getting softer.

Step 15: Have patience. This lasted two more months. I think it could have lasted longer but fate intervened.

Step 16: Go somewhere with lots of down-hills with friends who already ride without training wheels. So we went on vacation with friends who have two kids older than M-ito. We camped a few days as part of the vacation. On the campground the dirt roads and down-hills allowed M-ito to go fast and forced him to look ahead, not down, to multi-task making decisions of balance, speed, and brake-power very quickly. After two days, he was ready. One of his friends said, “M-ito, put the pedals back on. You can do it.” That afternoon he came to me and said that he was ready.

Step 17: Put the pedals back on. So the pedals were put back on. I stood next to my son and he pushed off, wobbled at first then went down hill, found his balance and braked after about ten yards. He looked back up the hill at Mom-ita and me and smiled. Within five minutes he was riding everywhere. I guess you could say he learned how to ride in a few minutes. Two years, four months and a few minutes.

Step 18: Put on your running shoes. Now, of course, you have to keep up.

Heartbeat

“Dad-dito, put your hand here,” M-ito said, taking my hand in his and placing it over his heart. He’d just taken a bath and only had on his shorts. His skin is tan from camp and the mosquito bites from camping two weeks ago are almost all healed up. I could feel his heart beating through his chest. It was loud and made my son seem so vulnerable to me. He smiled as we both felt the strength of the thumping, thudding, pulsing, beating. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever felt in my life.

The American Cockroach

I am constantly humbled by my inabilities as a father. That’s not to say I don’t have abilities, because I know I do. I’m just humbled by my inabilities and how often they show themselves to me.

Camping on Monday night in Greenport, out on Long Island – 9pm-ish. There were mosquitos the size of my index finger assaulting our tent. There were water bugs, aka the American Cockroach (2-3 inches long and they fly), and moths the size of my fist. Okay, I’m exagerating a little on the number of cockroaches – there was only one visible one. But it flew at M-ito and Artina, and almost flew into my mouth, hitting my chest just below my chin instead. These things were enough to freak me out but they sent M-ito and Artina into screaming panics.

What amazes me is that it took four nights for it to happen.

It was our last night of camping and we were all – two families getting along on a joint vacation, camping – sitting around the camp fire when the bug invasion started. I can truthfully say, in my own defense, that I was tired, aching from sleeping on a blow-up mattress, dirty, mosquito bitten, covered in bug spray, and ready to go home. Still my patience had been running pretty deep considering camping trips are stressfull to begin with and with a 5-yeaer old, even more so. M-ito was tired also and up past his bed time. When the moth, the size of my fist, fluttered into our campsite and circled around each of our heads, tempers started to rise. Artina and M-ito climbed onto Mom-ita and Artina’s father’s laps. Artina’s older sister started to panic and the younger ones followed her lead.

“It’s only a moth. Moth’s don’t bite,” didn’t work at calming them down.

“You’re bigger than the moth. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it,” didn’t work either (I didn’t come up with that one but I tucked it into my mental back pocket for use later ’cause I thought it was a good one).

Ignoring it didn’t work either.

Then the moth flew down to circle the lamp which was equidistant to each of the youngest children and the screaming began. “Get-away-get-away-get-away,” echoed from each child in stereo as they swung their hands in front of their faces trying to keep it away. I tried to get it to leave by waving my hands at it but that only confused the poor creature more and it flew into my head and around my face. My automatic response was to swat it and I did, connecting with a right handed slap. Stunned, it landed in my lap, amidst the cacophony of high pitched screams. I quickly picked it up by its wing and threw it over my shoulder, not realizing the coal bar-b-que was in that direction. I followed its arch with my eyes, into the flaming pit as it disappeared with a barely noticable white tracer behind it and a soft, phhiittt sound.

“It’s gone now,” I said, just as the second marauder arrived, a huge water beetle. This landed on the tent roof and sat there for ten minutes before it made it’s move. It flew into Artina and landed on her shoulder before just missing my mouth and hitting my chest and knee. All hell broke loose. I picked up M-ito and tried to calm him down while Artina’s dad took her. I lost Mom-ita in the chaos. Out of the war zone and by our tent, I said over and over into M-ito’s ear that everything was okay. I used such effective phrases as, “please stop screaming in my ear,” and “it’s only a moth,” and “they don’t bite,” and “save your screaming for something real to scream about.”

What was I thinking? M-ito had every right to be freaked out. I was freaked out, but then I’d dealt with these things before so I had a bug-history. I’d gone to sleep in a room on the Mosquito Coast when I was in the Peace Corps and had a dozen of the very same American Cockroaches climbed all over me before I awoke in a complete panic and smashed every single one I could get my hands on. That was when i realized the buggers could fly. And I still remember thinking as I watched them take flight, “Holy crap, they can fly.”

M-ito had nothing but this one single terror, and I realized on some level, it was real terror. Still, the screaming in my ear, the inability to calm him with either soothing words or irrational idiot phrases finally did me in. It could have been five minutes or it could have been twenty. But I finally said, breaking the last straw in my patience camel’s back, “Would you just shut up!”

M-ito instantly stopped screaming and looked at me, stunned. “Dad-dito,” he said, “you never say shut up to someone.”

What I had done washed over me and left me feeling both embarrassed and ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you were screaming in my ear.”

“Dad-dito, we’re not supposed to say shut up to anyone.” And he was right. We’d gone over this with him many times. It was a house rule not to be broken because it was bad manners, and I’d just broken it. I couldn’t take it back and I really couldn’t justify it. “I lost my temper, M-ito. I’m sorry.”

Then his tears came again, from the terror at the bug attack and from what I had said to him. He held on to me even tighter and my heart broke, yet again.

“Bugs are scary,” I said, “And I was scared to,” trying to make up for it.

“But you shouldn’t have told me to shut up,” M-ito said.

“You’re right, son, you’re right.”

When I explained to Mom-ita later why I was so down. She said, in her most practical manner, “He was screaming in your ear.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “That’s something.”

I’ve done worse and will probably do worse again. It’s kind of the nature of the job. You mess up. You apologize. You move on and hope that at the least, the example of the apology will weigh in for something. Because the bottom line is, we’re only human.

Camping

We just came back from four nights of camping out at Greenport with Artina and her family (mom, dad, big sister). Momita and I were complaining about the dirt, mosquitos, bugs, and blow-up matress starting on day one. M-ito loved everything about camping, the moment we arrived and pitched tent.

We swore we would never do it again. M-ito’s already made plans with Artina for next month – regardless of the fact that he still doesn’t understand the difference between July and August and this week and next week.

So here’s a question for you. Which is worse, getting bitten fifteen times by various mosquitos or watching your son get bit fifteen times by various mosquitos? They raised welts on M-ito and he’s presently covered with calamine lotion.

Here’s to five days of being covered with mosquito repellant, sun screen, and dust, not necessarily in that order.

Here’s to warm beds, soft mattresses, and airconditioning.