We're back in the game!

 

I can't believe that my last post was in 2014.  I LOVED blogging, but for some reason, one day I just stopped. It's time to get back to it. I've got a few years to catch up on and a few hundred pictures to go through, but I'm going to do my best to get it done. With that being said, I'm going to start with what is fresh on my mind, which would be  what's happening NOW and then work my way backwards until I get caught up.  That should only take about 5 years. UGH!!!! 

First post of 2018:  Let's talk about my Kin Kin. When Bailey stopped playing softball, it never occurred to me that Kinley would want to play. We tried to get her to play T-ball and she wouldn't even give it a second thought. She made it very clear that our softball days were over. I had accepted it and was no longer hanging on to Bailey's old cleats in hopes that they would one day be on Kinley's feet. Then one day, out of the blue, Kinley came home from school with a form for running club, which without even thinking twice about it went into my "I'll try to look at it later but probably won't pile" but Kinley had other plans and held on to it and made it her top priority to pull it out every single day after school as soon as she walked in the door and immediately waved it in my face for about a week and wouldn't let up about it until I signed the paper and paid the fee. I wasn't sure what had changed and made her suddenly want to run when she didn't have to, but I was willing to let it play out. Honestly, I figured that she would go to running club one time and then would announce that she was never going back. I had pretty much made up my mind that that money was going straight down the drain, but she was so persistent and wouldn't take no for an answer, so we had to do it. I was fully prepared the day I picked her up and saw her bright red, tired face waiting for me to rescue her and I thought for sure the first thing she would say would be something like,"We had to run the whole time and not the fun kind of running. REAL RUNNING!!! Why did you sign me up for this????" Instead, she jumped in the car, super excited and talked about how she couldn't wait to do it again. My heart jumped for JOY!!! She never tired of it and a few weeks later came home with all of these different colored papers from school and announced she needed me to sign her up for soccer, volleyball, softball, some kind of weird cooking class for kids as well as continuing running club and she thought she might want to play basketball too if there was time. As excited as I was that she wanted it all, we had to break it to her that this was not going to happen.  For one, we would have needed to take out a loan for all of that craziness to happen and last time not that I've ever checked but I'm pretty sure they don't give out "student loans" to 7 year olds  who want to involve themselves in every after school activity known to man. Secondly, you know those moms who have their kids running from the minute school ends well into the night  and who's SUVs have become taxis/nascars  as well as dressing rooms and restaurants for their kids due to the fact that there's no time to stop between the countless activities that take up all of their time, money and sanity and almost always make it impossible to be on time anywhere because as one thing is ending, the other has already begun. Yea, I'm not one of those moms. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that. I would love to have that kind of energy and motivation....I think....but honestly just typing all of that made me tired. I couldn't imagine actually having to do something like that.  Maybe I should start an "over achievers" uber service specifically designed to help those moms out when needed. Anyway, back to Kinley's high hopes of days filled with non stop activities. I personally had my heart set on being back out at the ballpark, so we talked her into trying softball first, but left it open that she could do the others too, just not all at the same time. She was good with that and for the next 2 weeks, she reminded me about a thousand times to sign her up for softball and everyday after school she would ask if we could go to Academy because she couldn't wait to own her own softball helmet, bat, backpack and pair of cleats and most importantly a big water jug with her name on it. She made me excited because she was so excited. 

After we finally made it to Academy and she proudly owned her own brand new equipment, she couldn't think about anything else. EVERY SINGLE DAY AFTER SCHOOL AND EVERY NIGHT BEFORE BED she would ask at least 10 times if I had gotten an email from anyone about what team she would be on. It was like she was waiting on a college acceptance letter. The day the email came she lit up. She finally felt like things were happening and it wouldn't be long before practice would start and I was super excited for her, but also a little nervous. Those of you that know Kinley well also know that she marches to the beat of her own drum. I knew that if one thing happened that she didn't like, she would march herself off that field and never look back. (I say "I knew")but I didn't. She LOVED it. Her brain went into softball overdrive. That's all she thought about. She was ready for the season to start before she had ever swung a bat or caught her first ball. I was in awe of her. She wanted it bad and she was all in!!!! Opening Day finally came around and she was up and at em' bright and early!!! Still, I waited for something to go wrong because Kinley is the most unpredictable kid I know (not to mention, I unfortunately am one of those "hope for the best but deep down feel the worst is coming" kind of people and I never know what she might do or say and that's a little scary. She's not big on talking to adults that she doesn't know and it becomes very awkward sometimes. It comes off like she's being rude, but she truly does feel more anxious than alot of kids when she has to interact with adults she doesn't know. Surprisingly, she immediately LOVED all of her coaches. Not surprisingly, her actions towards them didn't exactly scream "Love is in the air" because Kinley in true Kinley style decided that she would show them how much she liked them by being rude and throwing a few dirty looks here and there. (It's almost like when a boy likes a girl, but they're only 5  and they think chasing girls around the monkey bars and then throwing dirt on them is somehow a form of flirting) Not that Kinley was flirting by any means, that's silly, but you get what I'm saying right? That's when I knew she really did like them. If she wouldn't have liked them she would have literally gone out of her way to make it seem like she didn't see or hear anything they were saying. There would have been NO EYE CONTACT whatsoever!!! I'm sure there are moms out there that don't know us and just assume that Kinley is a snobby brat, but she truly feels anxiety if someone she doesn't really know tries to engage in conversation with her. I can't tell you how many times I've said, I'm sorry, she's just really shy and thankfully most people say, "I had one like that too." To add to her "I don't know you so I don't see you" personality, did I mention that she does not like to be praised. If you say "Good Job Kinley" she is going to let you know with her body language and words that she's not having it. Of course, the poor coaches didn't know this about her and probably thought, "This kid is a BAD NEWS BEAR!" I should have probably given them a heads up, but what mother says to her child's coach, "Please don't compliment or encourage my kid. You'll have better luck if you act like a drill sergeant and show her no mercy. How does someone who doesn't know you even take that???? They would have thought I was the Joan Crawford of softball and I don't want that title so I'm just letting it play out. Hopefully they will survive her.  I do cringe a little when one of them attempts to give her a high 5 or a"We'll make a ball player out of you yet"comment and she makes it a point to shut that down by throwing her "Why are you verbally assaulting me" look followed by obvious the giant steps she takes to insure that they can't reach her.  She really does LOVE her coaches. She just has a funny way of showing it. Hopefully I won't need to include apology letters with their gifts at the end of the season, but I'm prepared if necessary. 

Opening Day: They made their way around the field with the other teams and every time I tried to get a picture of her, she would throw me a "GO AWAY NOW" look, but she should know by now that if I want the picture, I'm going to get it. I have to have something to show her when she's grown and has kids of her own and karma sets in. I'll just pull these up and remind her of how much I love her despite her need to sometimes be in cooperative.

How cute are they????? Lucky for me the other girls were happy to smile for a picture and Kinley decided to be a team player and smile too.......until no one was looking  

You know when your child is on your last nerve, but there are other moms around so you keep your cool and then as soon as no one is looking, you make sure to let your child know by the look on your face that it's not cool and they're gonna get it if they don't stop? The look she is giving me in the picture above is pretty much the same thing. The only difference is, I'm the mom so I can laugh at the stern face and the fact that she mumbled as meanly as a mumble can be, "SERIOUSLY MOM" and then snap a picture of it for future story telling and not have to worry about getting in trouble at all. That's one of the many joys of being a parent. The looks of "YOU'RE GONNA GET IT" are now funny because they're coming from your kid which in turn means, there will be no picking a switch from a tree or waiting until your dad gets home to follow through with your punishment. You now have the power to do whatever you want with their frustration. You can either get mad because they're acting a little bratty or you can pull out your phone and snap a picture and then blog about it.
Does that make me a bad mom???? I'm going to assume you're thinking, no and be ok with my decision.

On a side note: This picture really amuses me because she looks exactly like her Daddy does when he starts getting annoyed over something minor and there's people around so he doesn't want to look like a jerk, but  he knows that we know when his hands go on his hips and his face says "KNOCK IT OFF", most of us will usually knock if off unless one of our names are Colton and then most of the time we will choose to make some witty comment that is totally on point and hilarious but nobody laughs because the hands are still on the hips. Depending on Colton's mood, he will usually see how many buttons he can push before he throws in the towel. The funny thing is, everything Colton does and the way he goes about aggravating his Dad like it's all in good fun, but he totally wants to get under his skin too is the very thing Greg does to all of us when he wants to ruffle some feathers but make it "all in good fun".  I can't help but laugh when one of my kids show him how similar they really are and use his own wit against him.  He doesn't find it as funny  when he's the target of his own shenanigans. Geez.... Sorry I'm getting off track once again. Back to Kinley and softball.....

Here's where they had the kids sit down in the wet grass with their white pants on. When Colton and Bailey were younger, this would have driven me crazy!!! I would have immediately been worried about grass and mud stains setting in before the season had ever officially started. Now, I'm like, Whatever!! They're gonna get stained up sooner or later. Might as well get it over with. It didn't even bother me a little. She got up, her butt was green and it was fine with me. Here we are a few games in, the stains did not come out and still, it's o.k. I can't believe I ever let something like that bother me. They're kids playing in grass and dirt. It's gonna happen. I'm liking that the whole "Don't sweat the small stuff" idea has overpowered the OCD part of my brain. It's so much easier to deal with.
Well, now I'm tired so I'm going to save the rest for another blog. Obviously, i can't seem to stay on track at this point anyway so I'm going to stop myself now before I start rambling to the point of no return.  If you made it this far, thanks for reading and stay tuned! I have a lot more to say. SHOCKER right!!!

Oh wait, I have one more picture. Here is Kinley's first time in a dug out as an actual player.
Naturally, I had to capture this special moment and naturally she was not amused.  Her exact words (in a mentally exhausted tone) were, "Please Mom, you have to stop!"

 This kid makes me laugh daily and makes me think harder too. Her knowledge and understanding of some things amaze me. Honestly, I think she's probably smarter than I am and she knows it, but I'm not going to let her know that I know it too...not yet anyway.