Last night, we brought Brayden to his first baseball practice. And quite literally, it was his first practice period. He’s played summer soccer before, but though they warmed up and kicked the ball around a bit before their little games, he’s never had a real practice before.

I can tell you four things to sum up the experience:

It was extremely long. It seems like all the other boys have been playing since they learned how to walk. Brayden has no idea what on earth he’s doing. And he had the time of his life.

I went on the baseball website late last week to sign him up. He’s sort of in this no man’s land as far as his birthday goes. He’s supposed to turn seven by April 30th to play in the developmental league (7 and 8 year olds). If he’s still six by April 30th (which he still is), he can play in the developmental league if he played a year of T-ball last year (which he didn’t). So, we decided to sign him up for T-ball, which is in June and July.  After deciding this, we went back on the website to sign him up, only to find out that I actually cannot sign him up, because he will be seven before T-ball starts in June. So, apparently, if your birthday is between May 1st and June 7th of 2007, you are in no man’s land and are not supposed to play in either league if you didn’t play T-ball last year. Anyone follow all that running around in circles?  We ended up having to sign him up for the developmental league, even though he didn’t play T-ball, because well, that was the only one the website allowed us to put him in based on his birthday, and I guess they have no idea that he didn’t play T-ball last year. . .

We arrived at practice a little early. And quite literally, for the next hour and a half, my heart sank a bit. And a little more. And a little more. It seemed like a lot of the kids already knew each other. Many of them had their own bat. Their own batting gloves. Batting helmet. Baseball backpack. Pants and socks.

We showed up with a pair of baseball cleats from Savers, and a glove that I bought at a garage sale probably four years ago.

I watch my little guy miss a bunch of balls when trying to catch. I watched the other boys playing catch with each other like they were little pros. I watched the other kids know where to stand when the coach told them to go play shortstop or left center field.

But then I watched my son smile and laugh like this was the absolute best day of his life. I watched him actually run toward the ground balls like he wanted to participate and be a part of the game (of course, then he’d pick it up and not really know what to do with it). And I watched him say goodbye to a little boy who he said as we got into the car, mom, i already know who my best friend on the team is! when just 100 minutes before that, he had never met a single soul at the field.

I truly was amazed though at the whole practice. The coaches were telling the kids to slide into second for one part of the practice. They were telling the kids, okay, there’s a runner on first, so play is to second. Ummmm. . . yeah. My kid has never played baseball in his life. . . how about you break that down a little bit into understandable six year old language. And then my jaw dropped when during their little scrimmage at the end with the other team, two kids actually made a double play. A double play. On the very first practice.

yeah so . . . yeah so.  I wanted to say. well. . . my son can name all of the books of the new testament in order, so take that!

And then Brayden’s team took the field during the scrimmage, and well, not only has Brayden never really ever played like “out in the field” before, in any kind of position, but the coach put him at first base. Seriously? Out of all places to put the new kid, let’s throw him at first base! Because there’s not a high level of action there! No problem.You can probably guess that that went over rather successfully.

In summary, I felt a little defeated about the whole thing. Discouraged a little bit that we’re behind already, even though he’s still so young. James encouraged me, and reminded me that this was the very first practice. That he can work with Brayden to understand the rules and pretty much how the game is played, other than just trying to hit a ball as hard as you can (which is the part of baseball that Brayden loves to do).  And I am definitely hopeful for him, because there aren’t too many things that keep Brayden’s attention for very long. And for the entire hour and forty minutes that we were there, he was paying attention, and participating, and truly having fun.

And for right now, that’s good enough for me.