Parkfest and Batting Practice

Summer is over.  It's Labor Day today and with it brings flags waving, a day off from work and school, the start of college football season, the anticipation of Fall and the fear of my kids flipping through TV channels today and accidentally stopping on TLC's Labor Day marathon of their show A Baby Story and being traumatized by the video diary of some strange lady giving birth on our 46" high definition TV.  I'm not even sure if TLC still runs it's marathon of this show but I know they used to and I've never seen an episode without thinking of some poor 7 year old on their day off from school with the remote in search of SpongeBob or ScoobyDoo, accidentally coming across this channel and witnessing some grown lady all spread out in a hospital screaming at Jesus for an epidural.  I get it - it's Labor Day, but I'm pretty sure that's not what this holiday is all about.  Anyhow, this nightmare didn't happen at our house today. (whew!)  The girls and I arrived home from a weekend in Ottawa and we all took naps this afternoon, so there wasn't even any pleading for Tom to turn off the Golf Channel today.  Happy Labor Day/Start of Fall/Football Season ect. to you - however you celebrated.

Tom opted out of coming with us this weekend in hopes of spending several more hours on the phone with Dell getting his new laptop back up and running.  A virus wiped it clean and apparently 14 hours on the phone with Dell last week wasn't enough to resolve the problems.  Here's a public service announcement:  Back your s**t up on your computers!!  After he resolved that, he cleaned the carpets in our house while we were gone.  I know, I know - he's awesome :)

The girls and I started out Saturday morning set up for our 2+ hour road trip to Ottawa with coffee and DVD players.  They were both so quiet and entertained the whole way that I started calling friends to catch up on my drive there (I had my blue tooth in my ear so no new Ohio laws were broken) to take advantage of the rare silence I had to chat.  I wanted to find out how Claudia and Drew, our niece and nephew, were doing in school so when I got a hold of Amy and she said they were at Drew's soccer game, I noticed we were only 15 minutes from Sidney - where they were.  I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal, so I actually contemplated for a minute whether we should stop by and deviate from my travel plan.  I'm going to be a terrible 80 year old lady when it comes to routine.  If corn is served on Tuesdays instead of Fridays, it will probably do me in.  I really rely on my friends Mandy and Shannon to call me with a last minute invite to do things with me and my girls.  By nature, I am a planner and like things a little predictable so I need these friends in my life to keep pushing me towards spontaneity.  My girls are better off for it.  Back to Saturday- I knew I would seriously regret skipping this opportunity to catch Drew's soccer game just because it wasn't what I had planned that day.  So we got off the exit and were able to see just over half of the game and were able to catch up with Amy and Andy a bit before we were on our way again.  And, of course, I was so glad we did get to see him play some!!  And Casey who is a younger soccer player, was really focused on the game and watching him.  It was a pleasant addition to our day!!

Drew getting into position

Aunt Amy with the girls

 

Every year on Labor Day weekend my hometown of Glandorf holds it's church/town festival known as Parkfest.  I have many, many memories from the Parkfests of my teenage years that I will not share with my daughters until they are 33 and are too old to throw something back at me like, "But you did it as a kid."  Mom and dad and I took the girls to ride the rides, play the games, and eat the infamous 'Social Burgers' that are no longer square.  Unless you are from Putnam County, you don't know what that means, but you can get out your Tums and imagine a lot of grease and some very large pumps nearby which dispense ketchup. 

Casey begged me not to put Emily on this ride because she didn't think it was safe for her :)

 

 

And after it started, I wondered if Casey was right.  Casey held tight to Emily the entire ride. 
I looked at it as a good sister-trust opportunity

It started to rain, so we took the girls back to my parents' house and I returned later in the evening with my sister and my dear friend, Marna, and her husband, Jay.  It's not often enough that I get to socialize with the friends I've kept in contact with from there, so when I do, I get kind of a little nostalgic and make them get their picture taken and tell them how much I love the turtle races and how I am now afraid to drive on a 2 lane road with no yellow lines much less a concrete barrier in the middle.

Thanks for posing, Marna and Stacy

 

When one from PC thinks of Parkfest they probably think of several things:  The Village Idiots playing polka music under a tent, (no-longer) square social burgers, beer (now served in a can and not in a milk jug), and turtle races.  It's a tale as old as time - or as old as I can remember anyhow.  And for that long, the same guy has been the announcer of the turtle races.  If I were anywhere in the world and I heard that voice, I would instantly think he was telling me that Neinberg Supply's  #5 turtle would need my $2 bet.  And I would oblige.

Self explanatory

 

I drank a little too much beer (which has also been kind of a theme at Parkfest for too many years) and had a good time seeing some familiar faces.  I'm glad I got to take my girls and they are even are still talking about it. 

I'm almost done with this post, but I have to tell a brief story from yesterday evening.  My sisters and other niece and nephew came down to mom and dad's to hang out with us for a while.  Braeden loves baseball as much as Casey loves Barbie, so we got out the bat and ball for a little game of front yard baseball.  I was pitching and each kid wanted a turn at bat, including Emily.  To my knowledge, this was Emily's first attempt at bat ever.  I got her grip all set up and stood maybe 3 or 4 feet away and gave the ball a little pitch.  And sister knocked it out of the park!!!!  Okay, maybe it was more like 8 feet or so, but it was solid contact and that ball was airborne!!  Dear Lord, you'd thought she just hit a grand slam in the bottom of the 9th in the 7th game of the World Series, I was so excited.  But this  was a fluke, right?  Wrong.   I get myself all settled down and her back in her stance and gave the little ball a pitch her way again.  2 for 2 she hits the ball 6 or 8 feet!!  I so wish Tom would have been there!  It was awesome.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures - I was pitching.

Having a child with special needs can give you some of the lowest of lows in parenting, but, in turn, it can also give you the highest of highs.  And this had me soaring pretty high.   I can tell you I could play almost any sport really well growing up with the exception of softball because I could never get the hand-eye coordination of hitting (I was always put in right field or as pinch runner).  And to see my special 4 year old hit it...yeah, I'm out of words.  As I pitched those balls, I truly and honestly did not believe she would even come close to hitting it.  I was going to let her give it her best shot, because I always will, but she couldn't hit it, right?  Thanks, Emily, for righting my perspective again.   Do I think her future is in baseball?   Of course not.  And I might be over-thinking the significance of this little event, but it kind of renews my heart to believe that my little girl is going to be great at what ever she decides she's going to be great.  And as she starts pre-school tomorrow I have confidence in her that if she has trouble with all those boys in her class, I only have to send her favorite bat with her to school to take care of herself.   :)

I found myself wanting to take a picture of the set of Encyclopedia Britannica's my parents have.   I can't wait to blow Casey's mind one day when I explain this was life before Google - everything you needed to know was in these bound books.  (And the bible, of course.)   I still think they are awesome and hope to inherit them one day.