Activities Director

Time is running out. I have to make a decision by the end of the month about whether to register my older sons for youth baseball this spring. They both want to play, but the thing is, I already registered them for soccer, which they also both want to play.

Not that I think it would be a bad thing to have these kids playing two sports. They’ll be five and seven in the spring. Young boys need all the exercise they can get. Mommies of young boys need them to get all the exercise they can get.

I was talking about this recently with our bowling league coordinator. We did the “when-we-were-kids” thing about how years ago we’d spend all day out side playing with our friends and didn’t come in ’til the street lights came on. My, how times have changed. Whether it’s because the world really has changed, or we’ve all increased our awareness of the boogeyman, kids just don’t do that anymore.

I can barely get my kids to go out into our private, fenced-in backyard by themselves.

“Take your light sabers outside boys! It’s in the sixties today – you’re not going to get many more days like this during the winter. Here are your shoes – please don’t step outside in those clean socks.” I told them as I ushered them out the door one unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon.

Fifteen minutes later, they raced in, jockeying for position to be the first to present his side of their argument, tracking mud all the way to the couch where I’d collapsed, after tucking their little brother in for a nap.

“He hit me with his light saber!”

“Only because he hit me first!”

What I thought was: “Gee, boys, if you’re going to be swinging light sabers at each other, someone’s going to get hit, right?”

What I said was: “Why don’t you find something else to do.”

“Like what?” They both demanded.

I ticked off a list of suggestions including playing on the swing set, hitting baseballs, or picking up toys from the side yard.

“That’s boring!”

“We can’t – we hit all our balls over the fence!”

“I don’t want to!”

Yes, I definitely think it would be a good idea for these kids to play both sports.

However, at ages five and seven, they won’t be on the same teams, as was the case with soccer this past fall.

I  thought back and recalled my traipsing to two sets of practices and games every week, usually with their one-year-old brother in tow. Instead of sitting on the sidelines cheering, I’d spent most of my time herding the youngest off the field, while trying to keep whichever of the older two who wasn’t playing in the game in my sight as he disappeared into the nether regions of Cow Pond Field.

I realized that doubling the sports would complicate things exponentially. And given that I hadn’t even factored in any ad hoc church, school, and scouting activities, I knew adding baseball wouldn’t even be humanly possible.

There. That was an easy decision.