This year, what reminded me there was little league was the ad that came home from the school. Also, then, signs up at the school advertising little league.
We're all friends here so I'll admit I am not a Lobos fan. I think the team sucks, I think their team mentality sucks. So there, I said it. The little league team associated with the boys' school was the lobos. Little lobos, or lobos little league or some such. I was not enchanted with the idea immediately. However, I had told the boys I'd put them in baseball and this seemed somehow a more organized idea than the after-school baseball class offered through the after-hours care people at the school.
When I started the process though I was immediately set back. Nothing I choose to do comes easily. That seems to be a common thread in my life. Firstly, they weren't great at returning phone calls and I was fretting over the small print that said 2 proofs of address required. Well that made no sense, if they cared where I lived we were screwed because my kids were transfers. Call after call, email after email and no answer on how to proceed. The deadline looming up. The second daunting factor was the price, $155 a child, no refunds. Yikes.
My oldest son was adamant he wanted to join. My younger was insecure.
Hmmm.
So I scavenged the web, looking for answers. I finally found a local little league team with a good website, only one of the 40 some in town, only one of the at least 40 some I'd already looked at or tried to contact. They had a gadget that you would type in your address and it would show you your team. It also had a neat map with the boundaries for each team clearly highlighted in a color. Indeed we were well out of the Lobos league area. I fretted over that some more, thinking of putting the boys in with strangers, and none of the kids from their school. I tried calling again to the Lobos. No answer. Typical Lobos. I was getting frustrated now and we were running out of money and I was thinking - do I bother? A friend of mine said she loved little league, she offered to help. I didn't take her help but I held it up in my head as a reason to go on. Sometimes that is actually the real help, talking me off ledges.
I went back on the website of the little league team and typed in our address. Hey - guess what - that was our team. The one with the functional website and complete contact list and phone numbers and emails of more than one person. That was our team. I had a vague sick feeling of hope. Hope and I aren't friends.
I realized we'd missed the deadline.
I gave it my one 'this is my last shot' effort. I emailed the entire board of directors. You might think I'm joking but no, not me, I was going to be sure I was going to fail so I could rest my conscience when I told the boys we'd try again next year.
The board of directors emailed me back. Two of them even called me. I had missed the deadline but they were running 2 late registrations, I could come to either. The second child was less than half price.
I went and registered one son with the promise that I could register the other if he felt he wanted to join.
He did not want to join that moment but I wanted him to. This team offered t-ball, not all the leagues seemed to have t-ball, so that excited me. I thought it was a good place to start.
We said we'd come to the big general meeting to meet our coaches.
The big general meeting freaked me out a bit. There were no fewer than fifty million people there, in one room, at a local school cafeteria. They were eating enchiladas, they all - all 50 million of them, knew each other. I walked up to the table and said "Hi, you don't know me, I'm new to this - just what the hell is going on here?" At which point one of the people burst into laughter and said "I'm on the board of directors, you're the one that emailed us aren't you?"
Wow, am I that obvious?
I was told who my team would be and I decided that since the meeting was intimidating me that's ALL I needed to know.
We left.
Soon our coach called us and said he couldn't wait to meet us. At the first practice we were given a full practice schedule and told everything we needed to do, what forms we had left to fill out and that we could call, text (yay) or email the coach, his girlfriend or his mother at any time with questions.
Who are these people and how did they land up in New Mexico? I mean this level of organization is nearly illegal here, I assure you.
Then, just because she felt like being super awesome the player's agent met my tiny-shy-boy and told me she was going to put him on a team that met his personality half way. To which end he ended up on a team of tiny, tiny, super shy, super worried looking 5 year olds. Something about this process was so endearing that I'll never forget it. Something about him not being the most freaked out kid on the field or the only kid to need 5 more minutes of Mommee-time before hitting the field really cheered me up. Somehow, just this once, fate intervened to make things better for me after giving me an unreasonably hard start.
We were thwarted in putting the boys on teams with their friends. However, we ended up with even better teams and even better coaches and surely an even better experience. Thus making Little League my new favorite thing ever to take part in as a parent.
We're all friends here so I'll admit I am not a Lobos fan. I think the team sucks, I think their team mentality sucks. So there, I said it. The little league team associated with the boys' school was the lobos. Little lobos, or lobos little league or some such. I was not enchanted with the idea immediately. However, I had told the boys I'd put them in baseball and this seemed somehow a more organized idea than the after-school baseball class offered through the after-hours care people at the school.
When I started the process though I was immediately set back. Nothing I choose to do comes easily. That seems to be a common thread in my life. Firstly, they weren't great at returning phone calls and I was fretting over the small print that said 2 proofs of address required. Well that made no sense, if they cared where I lived we were screwed because my kids were transfers. Call after call, email after email and no answer on how to proceed. The deadline looming up. The second daunting factor was the price, $155 a child, no refunds. Yikes.
My oldest son was adamant he wanted to join. My younger was insecure.
Hmmm.
So I scavenged the web, looking for answers. I finally found a local little league team with a good website, only one of the 40 some in town, only one of the at least 40 some I'd already looked at or tried to contact. They had a gadget that you would type in your address and it would show you your team. It also had a neat map with the boundaries for each team clearly highlighted in a color. Indeed we were well out of the Lobos league area. I fretted over that some more, thinking of putting the boys in with strangers, and none of the kids from their school. I tried calling again to the Lobos. No answer. Typical Lobos. I was getting frustrated now and we were running out of money and I was thinking - do I bother? A friend of mine said she loved little league, she offered to help. I didn't take her help but I held it up in my head as a reason to go on. Sometimes that is actually the real help, talking me off ledges.
I went back on the website of the little league team and typed in our address. Hey - guess what - that was our team. The one with the functional website and complete contact list and phone numbers and emails of more than one person. That was our team. I had a vague sick feeling of hope. Hope and I aren't friends.
I realized we'd missed the deadline.
I gave it my one 'this is my last shot' effort. I emailed the entire board of directors. You might think I'm joking but no, not me, I was going to be sure I was going to fail so I could rest my conscience when I told the boys we'd try again next year.
The board of directors emailed me back. Two of them even called me. I had missed the deadline but they were running 2 late registrations, I could come to either. The second child was less than half price.
I went and registered one son with the promise that I could register the other if he felt he wanted to join.
He did not want to join that moment but I wanted him to. This team offered t-ball, not all the leagues seemed to have t-ball, so that excited me. I thought it was a good place to start.
We said we'd come to the big general meeting to meet our coaches.
The big general meeting freaked me out a bit. There were no fewer than fifty million people there, in one room, at a local school cafeteria. They were eating enchiladas, they all - all 50 million of them, knew each other. I walked up to the table and said "Hi, you don't know me, I'm new to this - just what the hell is going on here?" At which point one of the people burst into laughter and said "I'm on the board of directors, you're the one that emailed us aren't you?"
Wow, am I that obvious?
I was told who my team would be and I decided that since the meeting was intimidating me that's ALL I needed to know.
We left.
Soon our coach called us and said he couldn't wait to meet us. At the first practice we were given a full practice schedule and told everything we needed to do, what forms we had left to fill out and that we could call, text (yay) or email the coach, his girlfriend or his mother at any time with questions.
Who are these people and how did they land up in New Mexico? I mean this level of organization is nearly illegal here, I assure you.
Then, just because she felt like being super awesome the player's agent met my tiny-shy-boy and told me she was going to put him on a team that met his personality half way. To which end he ended up on a team of tiny, tiny, super shy, super worried looking 5 year olds. Something about this process was so endearing that I'll never forget it. Something about him not being the most freaked out kid on the field or the only kid to need 5 more minutes of Mommee-time before hitting the field really cheered me up. Somehow, just this once, fate intervened to make things better for me after giving me an unreasonably hard start.
We were thwarted in putting the boys on teams with their friends. However, we ended up with even better teams and even better coaches and surely an even better experience. Thus making Little League my new favorite thing ever to take part in as a parent.
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