Why I Love Ball

Not many in my circle of friends have their kids in organized sports (and most that do are on my T-Ball team so it is very non-competitive). I have had my kids in fastball for 12 years now. We have had our ups and downs with coaches and team mates and fairness and they whole competition thing and all the other stuff that goes along with a sport like this that is not so positive. Yet we persist. Kaetlyn absolutely loves playing ball. It was my prediction when she threw a carrot across the room while in her high chair. She doesn't buy into hard core competition. She enjoys winning of course if it is because she and her team played well but she doesn't care if she loses, either. Whatever happens, she is usually laughing and happy when she leaves the diamond. And I watch every game I can. For several reasons. Of course I love watching my daughter and I am always amazed by her physical capabilities - her strength and skill. But I also relish the chance to stop what I am doing and just sit outside. No phone to ring, no task to do. Just sit and watch my daughter, chat with people who I have seen on ball diamonds for the last 12 years and be outside.

Sitting in view of this beautiful green hill with cows grazing on the Commonage, watching my amazing daughter do this:
(who despite breaking her ankle last year hasn't hesitated to slide this year... I'm more nervous about it than she is...)




And my younger daughter who has been at these diamonds since she was a toddler and had to wear a bike helmet to protect her from stray foul balls, plays in the cat tails at the edge of the fields with her cousins, trying to catch frogs.


I suppose it is the reason I don't mind so much when she signs up each year and why I am coaching Rhiannon.

Um

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day and if your family didn't look after you the way you were hoping that at least you looked after yourself! I had a wonderful Mother's Day planned. As usual (as it has been for the last 6 years, anyways) my Mother's Day was going to start at the ball diamond. This week end was Vernon's Fastball tournament for Kaetlyn's age group. I was hopeful, though, after getting the schedule. They were playing 2 teams they lost to last week and then two really, really good teams from the coast who would probably go undefeated. Which means that her team probably wouldn't go to playoffs and we would be done with the tournament by noon on Sunday. (great attitude, I know - completely self serving...)

I had told my family that I didn't really want gifts. What I wanted was their time - to be all together and I could really use their help in my garden getting the last beds done as the weather heats up and May 24 fast approaches and my window sills are overgrown with plants needing to be planted outside. Then after working in the garden to go to Juniper Bay (my favourite beach) and have a picnic supper. They were all game (except Erin who had to work but she hates working in the garden and hiking.... so I bet she asked for extra shifts... lol!) and I was really looking forward to it.

Saturday morning started perfectly. Kaetlyn was very eager to get to the tournament. She wanted to be at the diamond by 6:30 to warm up for her 8 am game (everyone else would get there around 7). She wanted to be really on for pitching. She was excited. She loves her team and her coaches. She has been saying how this is her best year - great coaching and a great team. And for her, great coaching means fairness and that she is learning a lot. And it is true. I would say it is her best year, too.

I watched the game until 9am when I left to go and coach Rhiannon's t-ball team. Our practise started at 10am but I had to pick up gear and get organized. I rushed home after and got ready to go to Kaetlyn's next game which was at noon and it was now 11:30. I never check messages when I am only home to leave again quickly but I checked the call display. There were several 'unknown name, unknown number' calls. And I knew. I knew in a way that a mother knows. I listened to the last message. It was Erin. Kaetlyn was in emergency. She's broken her ankle.

So I rushed to the hospital with Rhiannon nagging me about speeding... There she was in the ER, with tears running out of the corner of her eyes. And she wasn't crying from pain. She was crying because she let her team down and now she won't be playing ball for the rest of the season. Or umpiring. I asked to see the x-rays and they showed me. Her fibula had a spiral fracture and it was displaced and the bottom of her tibia called the malleolus was broken on the lateral side but not displaced. She needed surgery to set the fibula. They would put a very small plate in for the fibula and a screw in for the malleolus.

So do you realize that 6 years ago, when Mother's Day was on May 13, I broke both my tibial plateaux on a Sunday morning. And here she breaks the other end of her tibia on May 12 - 2 days after she turns 16!

But I digress.... I stayed with her and held her hand. By 1:30 they had her upstairs in a room. By 2pm they discharged her because the OR was so backed up (normal conditions since the wonderful Gordon Campbell government) and they wouldn't have time to get her in - maybe for 3 or 4 days.... So they sent her home with a prescriptions for T3's with her ankle in a splint. But it was several hours of agony that didn't let up. I was by her side constantly with her clutching on to me as it hurt. Nothing could distract her from the pain and the T3's didn't touch it. So we got all ready to go back in. I sponge bathed her and packed things for her to do and she got into he own pj's.

Back at the hospital they were wonderful. The did some fancy footwork and just erased from the computer that she ever left and got her back upstairs in a hurry. Up there it took 2 and a half hours and 3 doses of morphine an hour apart along with some gravol to get her so she wasn't writhing in pain. Her blood pressure started to climb and her blood sugars were all over. So I slept the night on a fold out chair that was actually quite comfortable and tested her blood every 2 hours and watched over her. I think the nurse that night did some insisting because first thing the next morning they got her into surgery.

There were so many miracles throughout this ordeal. Like the nurse on duty the first afternoon she was admitted was a mother of boy in Kaeltyn's class and she has known her since she was 7. And she was her nurse when she was diagnosed with diabetes and spent a week up there, too. When we came back, our nurse was Gobby, my friend Karen's good friend whose daughter is in my dance class. They were so kind to her. Our night nurse, Yolanda, although we didn't know her before, she was so incredibly kind to Kaetlyn and took her pain seriously. Kaetlyn is a really tough kid. Last week end I watched her take a line drive to the shin while pitching and she shook it off and hardly missed a beat. So when she says it hurts, it really hurts! When they wheeled her down to the OR the Dr who met her there who was assisting the surgeon was the father of a girl she has played ball with since she was 10. And the nurse in recovery was also the mom of kids she knew who Kaetlyn has known since she was very young. Everywhere they knew her and cared about her and Kaetlyn felt loved and supported. It was no coincidence, I am sure. And she let herself need me and called me mommy and clung on to me and I held her hand. And when they opened up her ankle they discovered that the malleolus was only cracked - 2 or 3 small cracks but it was not broken off. This is a major weight bearing bone so this was very good news. The surgery went really well - it was better than they had anticipated. I am sure that is because of all the prayers and loving energy sent her way. I think this break is a very symbolic thing. She is breaking with a past of being alone with her diabetes - a past of hating her diabetes - a past of feeling cursed by her diabetes - a past of feeling unloved and disconnected. As I held her through all of this and we clung to each other, I could feel generations of stuff slipping away - generations of the mother/daughter rift from my side of the family and generations of not looking after the body from her dad's side of the family. This morning when I woke up, I awoke thinking that her name is so significant. I named her for my sister Katie (Katherine) who I always saw as being so strong and, unlike me, was able to break away from family patterns to have more of her own life.

And it wasn't such a bad Mother's Day. I sat with Kaetlyn most of the time. She slept peacefully and I knitted and read and wrote in my journal. The room was very quiet, the sun shone through the windows. I made phone calls to update people. And at home my boys cleaned the house. I went and bought some organic, probiotic yogurt and some dried fruit (all those years of avoiding antibiotics and she has had 3 bags of them as the hospital's standard surgery procedure) and went home so Dean could drop me off and keep the van. Rhiannon stayed and played some Uno with Kaetlyn. Dean came back at 7pm and took me home for Mother's Day dinner with an ice cream cake (his favourite). I called and Kaetlyn was doing well and it was okay with her if I slept at home. I went to bed at 8pm. Now it is back to the hospital. They will be releasing her this morning. We'll take a cab home when she is ready while Dean works. And then I am going to be 'on call'. Worse things could happen....

Thank you so much everyone! Your love and support has meant more than you will ever know!

Girls Week End in Summerland

This week end Kaetlyn had a fastball tournament in Summerland so her and I and Rhiannon headed down to Penticton for a 'girls week end'.

I suppose this story started a long time ago. When we moved to the Okanagan almost 13 years ago, we figured "when in Rome..." so when you are in the Okanagan, you have to play ball. I signed Erin up to take a softball clinic through the rec centre when she was 8. The next year, we got a registration in the mail from Vernon Minor Fastball and she signed up. Playing fastball was always a challenge for Erin. Although she is very coordinated and naturally athletic, she is extremely hard on herself if she ever screws up on anything the slightest bit. Playing ball was something that she stretched herself to do - outside her comfort zone. That first year that she signed up with VMFA, I noticed that they had a t-ball program for Kaetlyn's age group and signed her up. She played a couple of years of t-ball and took some time off to try soccer. She started again when she was 10 - Squirt division which is when they start to play with regular ball rules, uniforms and against other teams. I got involved in VMFA's board and did registration and organized tournaments.

Kaetlyn loved it. She has played ever since. She has struggled with not-so-great coaches and unfriendly teams but she loves the game and she has persisted. When she was 12 she started umpiring (this is the first game she ever umped). She has excelled at umpiring. The teams love her and she is well respected. It is a great outlet for her innate bossiness and love of order.

This year she is on an awesome team. The best fit she has ever had. The coaches are fair and her natural leadership is valued. The girls on her team look up to her and her coaches appreciate her even attitude - she doesn't 'get down' on herself and she encourages her team mates. Although she is a pitcher and a good one at that (check out this link to Youtube for an example from this week end...) And wow was she on this week end. She was smoking. She has been clocked at throwing a pitch at 48km's an hour and that was a couple of years ago. They were going faster this week end, that is for sure! She was in the groove! It was so fun to watch her.

We stayed with Dean's Aunt and Uncle who live in Penticton, above the water who fussed over us and made great food! And Kaetlyn and I got to spend some great time together and Rhiannon watched some ball. She says she is going to be a pitcher, too... My face is brown and I think I am going to be one of those old ladies whose lipstick runs into the cracks around mouth... my lips have got sun burnt so many times watching my daughters play ball...

Here are some of my favourite photos from this week end. When I watch her, I think what an amazing daughter I have and what a body! Beautiful and strong and... wow! (and why does her mouth look funny? Her mouth guard, of course - to protect those $4000 teeth!) And did we win? Well, no. Not one game but that is besides the point. They were all close and her team played awesomely! They never lost by more than 4 runs and they played some pretty good teams.