Baseball Season

At 4:00 I go into James' room to wake him up from his afternoon nap. He looks up in bleary-eyed confusion for a moment, then realizes that it's me and immediately sits straight up.
"Are the kids gone from school? Can we go play baseball?"

I make him try to go potty first, but he's already telling me about where he's going to stand, and by the time I've found my fleece he's already holding his red plastic baseball bat. I get his shoes on and he insists he'd rather wear his winter coat than a jacket. It's cold out, so I pull on a wool hat and gloves, then get my baseball mitt and a real baseball. (He won't have anything to do with a tennis ball or racquetball at the baseball diamond.)

We walk out the front door and down the steps to the sidewalk, then cross the street with the familiar liturgy of looking left, right, acknowledging any traffic, and hurrying across to the primary school parking lot. James almost breaks into a run as we approach the baseball diamond. For some reason he insists that I stand at third base while he inspects home plate and declares that he's ready for a first pitch.

He is entirely serious. He stands directly on home plate, not beside it, then taps the dirt twice with his bat and stares at me expectantly, waiting for the pitch. He tells me to throw it fast. I lob him an underhand pitch from about three yards away, and he swings and misses. The ball rolls to the fence, and he dashes off to retrieve it immediately, then runs up to home plate again and throws it back to me. He takes his stance, taps the ground with his bat, and watches me expectantly. He still hasn't smiled.

I throw another pitch, and he gets closer. This time as he throws it back he tells me I should throw it with my glove, "like in George." I make a show of performing a more traditional wind-up with the ball in my mitt, and only toss it underhand at the last second after seeming to twist my whole body into the throw. He actually connects with the ball a bit this time and it rolls forward a few feet into the grass. He's too surprised to remember to start running towards first, and instead leans forward and throws it back to me again.

He continues to hit one for about every dozen he misses, but still won't run the bases once he connects because "he needs to hit a real home run." At one point I ask him if he's cold and would like to go inside, since the wind is picking up and his cheeks are flushed. He says yes and we begin to walk back down the sidwalk, but about halfway up he changes his mind and says he'd like to play more baseball.

We return to the diamond, and I pitch to him some more. He swings in about the same spot almost every time, so I get a little better at throwing the pitches about where he's going to swing. He still won't smile as I pitch to him. He is singularly focused on practicing batting. Finally a brother and sister come to the playground and watch him at the fence with their dog. James doesn't notice them for several minutes, but he grins when he sees the dog.

When he's finally ready to be done practicing baseball he takes a couple turns sliding down the slides and riding the swings, and I play right along with him on the empty playground. His fingers are downright icy when I hold his hand to walk back. I ask him if he wants to play on the swings tomorrow too.

Maybe after we play some baseball.