Toddler-Ball, Part II

Week Three of toddler sports class, and The Roc is teaching Mommy how to play catch, without success:

"Keep your eyes open!"

"Watch the ball!"

"I'm coaching you!"

Finally, to everyone's relief, Daddy comes home and takes my place.

"You can watch us," The Roc tells me, clearly exasperated.

I don't know why he's so smug. Today's warm-up drill had the toddlers running from one orange cone to another, touching the cone, then running back to the first cone. Only none of them did it. They kept on running. They picked up the cones and ran back with them. They kicked the cones over. They threw the cones in the air. They wore the cones as hats.

And that was just the warm-up. By the end of the hour, it was raining, everyone was covered with mud, and more toddlers than balls had gone flying into soccer nets. Though he'd excelled at throwing, tagging, and high-fiving, The Roc had not managed to catch a single ball.

This Fun Day

The Roc invariably begins his bedtime prayers the same way:

"Dear God: Thank you for this fun day."

It doesn't matter if we've spent this day getting vaccinations, waiting around for a tow truck to fix our broken-down car, running tedious errands, going stir-crazy from being trapped indoors by rain or illness, failing miserably at potty-training, searching for our car in the mall parking lot, screaming at each other, or sitting in traffic. On some level, it's all fun to The Roc. Like a small, fluffy dog, he views the world as an endless succession of games and treats. In fact, on our very worst days, I am always cheered up by the knowledge that, at the end of the day, The Roc will only remember the fun parts, however few and far between.

Toddler-Ball

I've always been the indoorsy type, so The Roc's recent obsession with games involving balls took me by surprise. (Although Daddy is a veritable Olympian in comparison to me, he is also European, which means he can do cool tricks with a soccer ball and understands the rules of cricket but has about as much aptitude for baseball, football, and basketball as The Roc does.)

Wanting to be supportive, I enrolled The Roc in a toddler sports class at a local park, which promised to teach him the basics of kicking, throwing, catching, and hitting. While skills like running in a straight line or throwing a ball up in the air and then catching it may seem instinctive, I can assure you that they are not.

The class started today with the great American pastime: T-ball. Lesson 1: running the bases. Again, it sounds so simple until you try to get a pack of toddlers to do it. First they ran the wrong direction. Then they forgot to touch first base. Then, instead of turning and heading to second, they kept running straight. And so on.

Lesson 2: hitting and tagging out. You'd think it would be impossible to strike out at T-ball; apparently not. The Roc succeeded in making contact, but as soon as he saw another little boy chasing him with ball in hand, he stopped running and politely waited to be tagged out. Then he resumed his meandering circuit of the bases, forgetting to touch home plate in his eagerness to high-five each and every one of his classmates.

Because beyond kicking, throwing, catching, and hitting, the most important sports skill toddlers can learn is high-fiving. Their extremely patient coach made sure they all got high-fives after every play, however poorly executed. And what toddlers lack in athleticism, they make up for in sportsmanship, camaraderie, and cuteness. They were as cute as a bunch of kittens, if not nearly as good at T-ball.

What Desks And Beds Are For

The Roc got a cute little kitchen playset for Christmas, which has caused us no end of frustration. Sure, everyone fantasizes about having a bigger, better kitchen, but nobody wants to have two kitchens in the same house. That's because every time you said something like "I'm over here in the kitchen" or "Just leave the groceries on the kitchen counter" it would lead to total pandemonium. For example, if I tell The Roc to "Put the dirty sippy cup in the kitchen sink" or "Bring me a spoon from the kitchen," there's no telling precisely which kitchen he's going to go to. Then I end up trying to stir my coffee with a tiny wooden toy spoon.

Even before we acquired a second kitchen, The Roc was prone to making up his own names for various locations in our house. Thus, the dining room is "the dinner bedroom," the desk is "the coffee desk," and the office is "the playroom." And despite the presence of the coffee desk, some bookshelves, and a filing cabinet, it really is indistinguishable from a playroom. There is a toy kitchen in it, for goodness sake. I do most of my writing, including this blog, on my laptop, in what The Roc calls "the computer bed."