Henry: Blastball 2014

Blastball: a precursor to tball for 3-4 year olds.  Kids hit the ball off the tee and run to first base where the bag makes a squeaky noise.  The kids in the outfield are encouraged to yell "blast" when they get the ball. 

The week before the first game the coach got everyone together for a meet and greet so faces would look familiar at the first game.  Unfortunately the first game was rained out.  Finally had the first game on week 2 . . . .it was met with some challenges.  Challenge #1 was putting on the shirt.  Henry did NOT want to wear it.  There was resistance; there was tears; there was anger.  He really does have something against shirts with prints on it - plus it was just a wee bit too big.  I tried to convince him his teammates would have the same shirt on but he didn't care; he hadn't seen these kids for 2 weeks; he had no connection to them.

We made it to the game.  He seemed to have gotten past the shirt issue.  The coach had him join the team in warming up (we were close to being late as it was a 6 pm game and we tried to go home to eat).  Henry batted and ran to first.  The next boy batted and started running to first.  Unbeknown to Henry he was supposed to just run back home but THIS WAS a baseball game so he tried to run to second and third but there was no second or third.  He kept running not realizing he was running to far.  I ran to rescue him but he was embarrassed and not so happy.  That it took the rest of the hour for him to drop his attitude.  I had to stand near him in the outfield - I tried to inch a bit further away each inning.  I had to meet him at the first base when it was time to bat.  We had a rough start.

Fast forward to tonight . . . Henry had a great night.  He got more balls in the outfield than he should have.  The coach tries to move them around so all the kids get at least one ball but Henry kept going after the balls.  In the past few weeks they put out a 2nd & 3rd base so the kids got to run all the bases.  A friend from daycare was on the opposing team and they had fun bantering.  I am pretty sure everyone knew they knew each other as they pointed each other out as much as they could.