Showing posts with label softball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label softball. Show all posts

12 April 2007

"You can just drop me off"


Little Sister is set to start her second year of softball out at Shawnee Lake. Her second softball season, but her last for coach-pitch T-ball. Next year she graduates to 'real' softball where the other team pitches.

She is a good hitter. Probably the best on her team. I'm not saying that because I am biased, it just happens that she hits really well, she always has. She has been having practices on Saturdays and Tuesdays in the school gym. I know, softball in a gym doesn't seem like it would make any sense at all, but they make it work I guess.

Her coach this year is a much more strict coach than last year's. Last year it was all about playing around and having fun. This year it is all about preparing the girls for the cut-throat world of real softball they will be experiencing next year. Some of the mothers were complaining early on about how strict the coach is. But they asked this guy to coach. I took her to a practice, and frankly he didn't seem that strict. Maybe he was only strict, I told the 5/8th, the first couple of practices to set into the girls' head who was indeed the boss of the team.

Last Tuesday, the 5/8th told me the coach would allow parents to stay and watch practice, but that he would rather they didn't. I was going to leave it up to Little Sister. I asked her if she wanted me to stay with her at practice or just drop her off. I was certain what the answer would be. She had never attended anything without either mom & dad or one of her brother's present. I didn't want to drop her off. I wanted to watch the practice. I wanted her to know that dad was right there...always.

When she went to Judo by herself one Saturday because the boys had a Boy Scout event to attend, she wanted me to stay with her there. I was sure as nails that she was going to want me to stay. But when I heard "you can just drop me off," my heart sank. She was too big now to have dad chaperon her around. She doesn't need dad in easy reach for everything anymore.

I begrudgingly dropped her off at the school gym. When I picked her up an hour later, she seemed different. Like something about her had changed. She was excited, more than usual, about nothing. I think it was because she proved to herself that she could make it through something like practice without having dad around for security.

I am certain I will be hearing a lot more "you can just drop me off" statements from her in my future. For Judo, for school events, for practices, movies, skating....

I suppose it is unavoidable. As she grows older she must grow more distant. That is the normal progress of things -but that doesn't mean I have to like it.





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