baseball fever, snow and exploration

Only in New England can you have snow in the forecast and Little League practice in the same week. 


Hello?  Spring???? 


Anyway.


Silly me.  I always forget how cold it gets down at the ball fields.  They're so close the water that the wind is moisture saturated and whipping.  Refreshing on hot nights.  Frigid the rest of the year! 


Only Jonathan and Toby were going to practice.  That was the plan.  But I knew Jonathan would be working late last night.  And had an early meeting in the morning.  Followed by soccer practice after work the next day.  I was overcome in the moment and decided we'd all bundle up and go to practice together! 


And at first it was nice.  Toby looked super cute in his new cleats and baseball gear.  As much as I complain about how long the games are.  And all the practices.  Seeing him in his gear still makes me all goofy in the mommy heart.  Bristel was smiling and dancing around us.  Trevy stayed (complaining every time we passed the "paaaay" - playground) in his stroller while we walked the track


First Walk - Then Play 


The most heard phrase of our walk.  In between, Jonathan and I were able to connect too.  I love walking and talking with him.  We've had a stressful couple weeks.  External stress.  Which always reminds us - that we're best friends. 


After three laps we let the little ones play at the playground for a while.  Taking Trevy shifts.  We were crazy and went leash-less.  I wanted to get a feel for any safety awareness gains that may have blossomed over the cooped up winter.


Um.  Yeah.  We're still at zilcho safety awareness. 


Which meant lots of calories burnt chasing him here, there and everywhere.  I'd feel better about all the chasing if it actually reflected somewhere.  Like...oh I don't know...dropping a jeans size or something.  Bleh. 


Anyway. 


Eventually we wanted to actually watch Tobes playing on the field.  So we forced (with LOUD complaining on Trevy's part) the little ones to sit with us for awhile.  I'll be honest.  I was conflicted with Trevor.  On the one hand...I do not want him to think the universe revolves around him!  Just because he survived brain surgery and hundreds of seizures a day does not mean he can get away with murder.  But also.  I want to keep my expectations realistic for him.  All the recent testing he's been through indicates he's functioning between 28-30 months.  When Toby and Bristel were 2 1/2 I would never have dreamed of making them sit through 90 minutes of baseball practice.  30 maybe.  But I'm not sure if 30 is realistic for Trevy?  I'm still making up my mind on that one.


Since we were on the fence about our expectations for him...we kept the leash in the stroller and let him explore at will after a handful of sitting minutes.  Also after the protesting had subsided.  Because I certainly don't want him thinking if he protests loud enough and long enough that he'll get his way.  I'm mean like that.


::smile::  


It was so interesting.  And cute.  To see what caught his interest.


There are ginormous boulders to climb.  He loved that.  Especially jumping off from the tippy tops.  There were woods.  Usually too thick with foliage to see what lies inside them.  Still leafless and evidentally...beckoning.  If you're Trevy.  He was quite anxious to go wade through them.  Me.  Not so much.  Especially because Trevy doesn't look for trails and instead just plows right in.  Again...that lack of safety awareness thing!  We let him wander all over the place and in doing so found a historical graveyard.  That was neat.  And otherwise just the usual parkish kinda stuff.       


It was just really cute to see how into exploring he was.  It was so little boyish.  And beautiful in that squeeze your heart kinda way.  Because it wasn't that long ago that he would have been too saturated with seizures to notice much of anything other than his anchors.  Mommy, Daddy, Toby and Bristel.  It wasn't that long ago that I dared not even to dream of the day he'd go intentionally exploring...rather than just aimlessly wandering.

Practice wrapped up.  Trevy was crushed and tantruming most of the way home.  Making sure we all of us knew he wasn't done exploring and it wasn't fair that we cut it short.  


And even though the rest of me was wind-whipped and freezing.  And even though it wasn't fun listening to all the protesting in the back seat.  Still.  My heart was warm and mushy.