I spent a good part of the afternoon fishing in our creek and I don't even have a fishing license. Heck, I don't even think it's the right time or year or season to be doing such nonsense. However, I think I'm alright, because as far as I can tell the elusive "baseball fish" is not on the list of things you necessarily have to get permission to "catch'. Plus, I was using a rake and stick - not a fishing pole and net.

Dangling over the precarious bank of blackberry and stinging nettle bushes, was slightly painful and frightening. While I played Indiana Jones, hanging from vines and watching out for King Cobras (the beer - not the snake), I also had to dodge an aerial assault from Gunny, since he decided to help me out by throwing rocks above my head. The little boulders would land in the water, spraying my sweaty face with a cool, murky film. It was slightly refreshing but utterly disgusting.

My little adventure caused me to sustain four painful slivers in my (ironically enough) middle finger, a few abrasions, and some slight bruising to my pride and legs. I narrowly escaped death and pneumonia in order to retrieve baseballs for my little slugger.

I'm the official title holder of "Mommy of the Year." Take that Nadya Suleman.

You might be wondering why the heck I was fishing baseballs out of a stream and I'll explain because it's quite the story. Well, not really but I'll fudge it up a bit to at least entertain you.

The story begins with a little six year old boy with a serious case of "Iwannaplaybaseballweallybad" and a convincing "puppy dog face." C-dub had it set in his mind that he wanted to play t-ball this year. He begged and pleaded for us to sign-up him up. Hubby happily obliged him since I would be doing the transports to practices, games, etc., and he looked like the hero for saying yes. I fought it based on a logistics defense (I hate playing Taxi). My whining was ignored and I finally gave in after I saw how much he wanted to play and I knew he'd look cute in a baseball hat.

I signed C-dub up and he had his first practice yesterday. When I arrived at the parking lot, I started looking for the cute crowd of five and six year olds, making daisy chains and running the opposite directions around the bases. Instead, what greeted us was a bunch of half-grown men, some sportin' peach fuzz, obvious jock itch, and a wad of chew. As we walked towards the field, I swallowed my fear with a huge gulp while the half-grown neanderthals spit their chaw into empty cans of Budweiser, all the while sizing us up. Little C-dub held his head high and made his way up to the coach, introducing himself and eventually finding his place on the field.

I glanced around, looking for the "tee" set-up, as I'm kind of a pro having taught one season of T-ball. When I couldn't find the "tee" I thought to myself it was a little strange. And besides the presence of huge man child players, I noticed they were all wearing baseball pants and cleats. My little man was in jeans and his "skater" shoes. Crap, what the heck was going on? His name was on the roster so I knew we were at the right place but my baby needed to progress through T-ball before I felt comfortable with him acting manly on the field and hanging out with these thugs (whom I later found out ranged in age from six to eight).

I questioned a few of the parents and eventually the coach as to what the heck was going on. I learned that C-dub's team was coach-pitch and that t-ball was for babies. This one hour practice made my little boy a man with talks of jock straps and cups (which, I had to explain to him did not involve drinking juice from), proper hitting and catching technique, and massive amounts of base running. I was so proud. And scared. Was he really ready for coach pitch having zero experience other than the Wii?

I knew we had homework. I told Hubby that I'd dress the little fella and make him look the part, but other than that, technique and equipment purchasing would need to be done by some father-son shopping. I fulfilled my part of the bargain by dropping off $80 off at Sport-n-Cycle in order to get him looking like a handsome little baseball stud. The shoes, pants, socks, bat, balls - everything he needed to begin his transformation. *sniff*

And this is how we get to the beginning of my story. When we got home from outfitting him, it was decided that we'd give him some hitting practice. C-dub has decided he really doesn't care for the catching part so much, and just prefers to nail them out of the park. With my awesome pitching, C-dub hit the little baseball so hard that it went right into our creek after taking a beeline off of my thigh. So much for it being a "safety ball" 'cuz that little sucker hurt like hell when it ricocheted off my femur.

It would have been only one baseball, but Gunny decided to try and play catch with the second ball, while I was busy rake fishing. I'm not coordinated enough to catch with one hand while dangling from the other, so it promptly made it's home next to the one bobbing in the creek. He's got a great arm for a little guy - but he'll definitely start with t-ball.

Wish me luck - I mean him luck. Practice is tomorrow and much to C-dub's dismay, I'm breaking out the camera. You can't take the mommy out of the baseball fan.