The Gentry World: It's Tee Ball Time in Tennessee!!

Matt and I were SOOOO excited when we learned about a local organization that allowed 3 year olds to play tee ball!!! I've always been told that the kids have to be 4 in order to play so when our neighbor gave me the info for Farragut Baseball, we signed her up immediately!!

Taking a little time out to socialize!

We got an email shortly after signing up informing us that Grace would a part of the Red Sox team! WHAT!! The first thing we did was call Papa with the bad news since he is a die hard Yankees fan!
Coach Jimmy told us we would need to purchase a glove and a pair of baseball pants. The official uniform (t-shirt) would be provided later and the rest of the equipment was optional. The morning of her first practice we were SO pumped and I sent Matt and Grace out to get her pants and glove. I guess Matt was a little more excited than I thought because they came home with the pants and glove that are required AND a helmet (pink of course!), cleats, a bat, and a bat bag to hold all of this new equipment! My, oh my!!
It was raining that morning and we were hoping to get a break in the rain to squeeze our practice in BUT it wasn't meant to be. We got the official call: CANCELLED! BOO!!
The following Saturday was beautiful and we were geared up for practice: GAME ON!! Our practices are on Saturdays from 1-2pm which is during Grace's usual naptime so we had our fingers crossed that she wouldn't end up in meltdown central in the middle of practice. Not to mention she was up at 5:30am the morning of her first practice.......Lord help us! After arriving, Coach Jimmy gathered all the kids in a huddle and asked if anyone knew what their team name is. A couple kids quietly said, "Red Sox." And then Grace yells out, "I'm on a baseball team!" WAHAHAHA!!
The first "drill" the players did was run the bases. They took off and Grace was.......ummmm just a TAD behind everyone else! HYSTERICAL!! Grace looked tiny compared to the other kids and appeared to be much younger. Some of them were downright fast! I started talking to the other moms and found out that most of the other kids are 4 - 4.5 with at least 4 of them turning 5 this summer!! No wonder!!
The coach had 3 different stations set up which was brilliant thinking for the attention spans of 3 and 4 year olds! Hmmmm, maybe he's done this before! :) At the first station, Grace got to hit the ball off of the tee. She got a couple hits in, but was quickly at the fence socializing. At the second station, the "assistant coach" was tossing the ball so they could try to catch it using their glove. As it turned out, Grace was more interested in playing in the dirt than catching the ball! WAHAHA! And finally at the last station, another dad was tossing the ball so they could get in more hitting practice. Grace got a couple hits and was once again playing in the dirt. All the players got one more chance to run the bases at the end of practice to which Grace responded with a big WHO HOO!! Believe me if you want a good laugh, you'll have to come out to a game! It is absolutely HYSTERICAL!!! The Red Sox play 8 games this season starting on April 9th and ending May 28th! Come on down and help cheer on our little Red Sox!!!