Baseball

There is one main reason that I signed my kids up for baseball instead of football, or soccer. The reason is Koen's shyness. I knew that if he was in one of the aforementioned he would just end up standing on the sidelines. I figured baseball was perfect because he would have his turn to play. I knew he'd be good, he just has to be forced to be good. So last year he did awesome. He really picked it up. This year he will move up to the minor leagues. They had try-outs tonight. Koen had been really nervous about it for awhile now. I wasn't really sure how they do them but I was sure he'd be okay. We are all sitting waiting for it to begin and all the families are sitting on the bleachers while the coaches are lined up against the wall. They then call Koen's name to come try-out. I had no idea they would do one at a time in front of everybody. Even worse, he was first. We hadn't played baseball since last season so he is totally unpracticed.
First they rolled him some grounders. He got all of them and threw them all back just fine. Then they started with the pop-ups. He almost got all of them, but he ended up not getting any of them. Luckily he quickly retrieved the ball and threw them in. The last pop-up he was so frazzled that he ended up throwing it way out. Then they threw another grounder. He ended on a good note. He was so embarrassed. I told him he did great. We stayed to watch three more people try-out before we snuck out. They did just as well or worse then him. That made him feel a little better. As we were pulling out of the school Koen called Tony and told him all about it. Tony gave some words of encouragement saying that he also cracks under pressure and that it didn't really matter how he did tonight because we all know that he's going to be awesome once he starts practicing again. That also made him feel better.
Okay so I learned from the experience that Koen can handle pressure fairly well. I mean it could have been disastrous. I learned that I can watch my kids do scary things without balling like a baby or passing out. I was praying for him though. I also learned that Koen might not be as shy as I thought he was. So it was a good experience all around.