The Reluctant Grownup

Saturday Morning Meal Planning

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G’morning. Update: I am half-vaccinated, soon to be full-vaccinated as of Tuesday. My in-laws are vaccinated. My parents are vaccinated. We are arranging visits where we don’t have to quarantine ahead of time. It is, in a word, Wonderful. It is, in two words, Wonderful + Anxiety-Inducing. I have forgotten how to be normal! All of my alarm bells ring when I engage in any behavior that is not quarantine-ish! I have literally forgotten how to have conversations with people! Coming out of this, as we slowly are doing, is going to be JUST as stressful as going into it was, apparently. (At least, AT LEAST, we have a competent federal government now.)

Second Update: Craig is in Little League now. He is right on the borderline of age between pitch-hit and tee-hit, and we put him in the tee ball group since it’s his first rodeo with baseball. He is 7, and the youngest kid on his team is 3.5. It is a HOT MESS out there. (Don’t think that Craig is too skilled for this team – oh no. He is the tallest by far, but not the best player by any stretch).

They’ve had two practices and their first game, which I am going to describe for you in detail because every minute of it was a delight. Craig’s team is the Bats, and they played the Power Pickles – both teams co-ed, both ranging in age from tiny wee little toddlers up to first graders.

First – the game last weekend was opening day, so they had some balloons and played the national anthem before each game. Our national anthem for our pee wee game was played by a little boy with his clarinet blasted into a microphone held reverently by his dad. He stopped and screwed up three times, which is to be expected. It took forever because he needed a minute to breathe and recover from each mistake. I’ve never stood so long with hand on heart, but every one of us in the audience waited patiently through his long pauses, willing him to get through it. He was quite good, actually, for his age, and all of the parents were rapturous at his skill but he left the field in a vale of tears because of his mistakes and every one of us was heartbroken and screaming affirmations. Poor little bud. I know he was just nervous.

After the national anthem, there was an attempt at a team photo which also took just absolutely way too long. All of these tiny little kiddos, girls and boys, with their baseball caps on, some wandering off, others grabbing their bats and swinging them willy nilly with nary a thought for who is in swinging range, leading to lots of whacks and tears.

Next, the coaches tried to assemble the kids on Craig’s team in batting order. This required each child to fish around in their baseball bag for their batter’s helmet, take their cap off and put the helmet on, get their batting gloves on (for those children who have them, and no they are not necessary but please just TRY to tell Craig that, I dare you), grab their bat and lean it up against the fence, and then line up in order in the dugout. Due to coronavirus cautions, we parents stayed out of the dugout, so we all ended up ineffectually hollering instructions at our children to keep them moving along, but we still ended up with a pile of un-marked baseball caps on the floor of the dugout and the guts of every baseball bag spilling out all over the place.

They bat off the tee, and most kids could manage to at least tip the ball after a couple tries. However, despite having two practices of running bases, shouting the base number as you tag it, and instructing the children that you do NOT have to tag the base with your hands as you run by, somehow these children did not get the base running remotely right. Cam, one of our better players, swung hard and really slammed the ball, and then immediately ran straight for second base. One teeny girl whose batting helmet is three times the size of her head (to accommodate her braids) hit the ball pretty well and then collapsed in tears right at home plate, for reasons none of us could fathom. Her father had to come on the field and carry her off, as she refused to budge. There were lots of pileups of runners on bases, and lots of forgetting-to-run-from-second-to-third, and it was all quite a hoot.

After each kid had a turn at bat, the switch from batting helmets/gloves/bat back into ball cap and mitts was predictably chaotic, and then each kid was assigned their spot in the field. Craig was short stop, and he understood that to mean that his feet were planted between second and third base and he could not move them. Watching him lean comically in the direction of a ball he couldn’t quite reach, but without moving a step, was pretty funny. A little girl named Cora stood in close near the pitcher’s mound, and she treated the game more like tackle football – she would run toward the ball and then fling herself at it whether someone else had it or not, and then would just lay there with it. Eventually she scraped her elbow which caused absolute hysteria, and her dad could barely keep it together as he gathered her up and treated the microscopic injury.

Anyway, they went through two rounds of every kid on each team hitting the ball once, and no score was kept. At the end they all lined up and in place of the usual walk-by good game high fives, they all stood six feet apart from each other and waved their caps in the air and shouted good game. Then the coach passed out beanie babies to each kid – Craig got a snowman beanie baby which he adores and which he has since marked in blue Sharpie with the words “The Bats.” It looks terrible and has bled all over the thing, but he loves it. Every day he tries to wear his uniform shirt and baseball cap to school, and every day I beg him to put it back in his baseball bag so it’s not lost when it’s time for the next game. I’m so glad we put him in this. Our lil’ toothless baseball star.

Now for the meal planning portion of this post. We have some (vaccinated) peeps coming to spend Easter weekend here, so I am planning our Easter meal with them in mind. Also putting together the meals for the week to come.

Easter Sunday! We will have as follows:

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