Play ball!

It is time again for Little League Baseball.  

Once the weather has changed just enough for the grass to green up and the cherry blossoms to bud out, another sign of spring shows up.  Baseball.

Chip is 11 and starting his 7th year of ball.  He is on a team with some of his fifth grade classmates and a few sixth graders as well.  It seems the older kids are quite a bit more mature.  I was told this evening after practice how "all the 6th graders cuss and talk about their 'you know', their naughty bits" (so funny).  

I have to say, Chip is very aware of his friends' vocabularies and actions, and how they differ from what he has been taught.  In the presence of an adult, he will nearly always be well behaved, in the company of 11 year olds, he is an 11 year old.  He gets called down by his teachers and his coaches for being raucous and loud, just like any 11 year old that is socially accepted by his peers.  Boys will be boys, after all.

Chip is a good kid, a bright student, a funny friend and a wonderful son.  I hope he can hold on to the values his mother and I have tried to instill in him.  This is a trying age and he is certain to be tested.  So will I.