Baseball Moms

I've been a baseball mom for awhile now. 14 years, in fact. And it doesn't show any sign of slowing down. I've sat through games in 100+ degree heat. And games where it was spitting snow. Gotten up for games that started at 8 in the morning and gone to bed after games that ended at 2. In the morning. Yes. 2. We've played as far away as a nineteen hour drive and as close as a 7 minute one. At our house, if the UPS man delivers something, it's probably a new bat. Or glove. Or oil for the glove. Or weights for the bat. Pants. Cleats. If it's not baseball season we're thinking about baseball season. Or talking about it. Working out. Taking batting practice. You name it, I've either seen it done or done it myself.
  
But there was a time, a little over 19 years ago, when I never thought that would happen. In fact, three days after my son was born, I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to watch him grow up at all, let alone play ball. You see, he had what has since been diagnosed as neonatal seizure disorder. But at the time, all we knew was that he was having localized gran mal seizures. And when the doctors come in, as you're getting ready to get discharged from the hospital, to tell you that your baby boy is sick and having seizures and they don't know why, things get real awful real quick. First they start talking about things like meningitis and then move on to things like brain tumors. They put him on some pretty powerful drugs and moved him into the NICU. They discharged me but let me stay there, in an empty room, so I could come in and feed him every two hours. I wasn't allowed to nurse him, cause maybe he was allergic to my breast milk. I could hold him and rock him, but only if he was hooked up to a monitor. The anti-seizure medication made him incredibly groggy. And it had the potential to cause long-term problems, including learning disabilities. He had every test known to medical science: EKGs, EEGs, MRIs and CAT scans. They let us take him home when he was 5 days old but he had to have that medication every 12 hours. I made a little sign and hung it on the inside of the kitchen cabinet - phenobarbital AM/PM - and would move an arrow back and forth after each dose. The doctor encouraged me to taste it so I would know what it was like for him. It was pungent and sharp. It made him gasp and fling his little newborn arms out to the side. But he always swallowed it, like the good boy he is. Six weeks later they let us wean him off of it. They still didn't know what was causing the seizures, but they had stopped. And not knowing, I guess, is actually a good thing.  Usually, if it's something they can figure out, then it's something pretty awful. At any rate, he's fine now. Really fine. 



 Now, if you've been to as many baseball games as I have, you've seen all kinds of baseball moms. Some are quiet and some are loud. Some fuss at the umpire ('Have you ever played baseball, blue?') and some at the other team's coach ('You need to just go sit down!'). A few of them even yell at the players ('He's an idiot! He needs to be thrown out!') And I will have to confess, in the heat of the moment, I've been known to say a thing or two. Yell them, even. It is, after all, a very exciting game, and it's easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment. And it's an odd game too, in that each kid playing it - while most assuredly a part of a team - is on his own. He fields on his own. And most assuredly bats on his own. He can be the hero - or the goat - in the blink of an eye. And it's oh-so easy to forget, in the midst of all that, that baseball can be a cruel game. It's the hardest thing in sport, my husband is fond of reminding me, hitting a round, moving ball with a round, moving stick. Not only that, but if you are only successful three and a half or four times out of every ten you'll probably make it to the hall of fame.

But that's not why we do this, you know. It has nothing to do with us, or me, and everything to do with him. It's what he likes to do. Wait... it's what he loves to do. Sure, we like (love) it too. We'd have to, as much time and energy and money as we've invested in it. Sometimes it feels like we're the handlers of some rare and skittish thoroughbred horse - managing feeding and sleeping schedules, workout times and batting practice, making sure unis are clean and packed, Gatoraides and waters on ice, eye-black and tape in the car. And there have been more than a few times when I've worried that maybe his big sister has felt like she got the short end of the stick - that we focused way more attention on him than her. But here's the deal - the one thing that, in my heart at least, trumps all else. He loves it. He's good at it. And it's what he wants to do. And when I look back and think about the whole thing? The entire journey from mother of a sick little guy in the NICU to a big, strong, healthy, seizure-free son who has a talent and the passion to pursue his dream?

Yeah. That's it, isn't it?