no place like home

At long last, baseball season has started. It was a grueling wait - even though I didn't really take a break. I did fall ball, pitching clinics, batting clinics, winter clinics with my own league and another.

But still. To be park in my own park, eating concession food is the best ever. They even have veggie dogs this year! And 1700 candy bags in stock. Apparently, that only lasts one month. (If I wasn't above using emojis, I would insert a shocked face here. a toothless shocked face because that much candy will ruin some teeth.)

Wait, I just realized that baseball season hasn't even started. It starts next Sunday. But I have had a few practices and my first game is on Thursday. Stay tuned for the game score. My first game is against my last year's coaches and my batting coach so I am going to hit at least a triple.

going to California

I just spent 11 fun-filled days in sunny California!

Several days after Christmas, we packed up the car on the most miserable dreary rainy day and headed for Seattle. The drive was brutal and took way longer than it should have. Friday rush hour traffic in the Seattle rain: a losing combination.

The next morning, we headed for SeaTac where I boarded a flight - alone!

I arrived in California and was greeted at the airport by my grandparents. and then I met my cousins. so many of them. We celebrated a belated Christmas. Then we proceeded to have all the fun and eat all of the pizza in the entire state.

And, just as my mom predicted way back in November when she booked my flight, I tried to play the "I'm sick" card for my first day back so I could miss school. She did not buy it. Off to school I went.

Mostly, I am heartbroken to be away from my cousins.

the good old days

While trying to get some photos organized to print for my great-grandmother Mary, I happened across this one. a classic from the good old days. me at a political fundraiser.

This is me meeting the lovely Congressman Doggett for the first time. Why did I have that look on my face?

Reason number 1 to love him:

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D, Austin.
NRA rating: F
NRA campaign contribution: None

grade 3, the first day

Today, I started grade 3. We are on a new routine so I will be going to bed at 8:00 each night. I did that last night! I was asleep immediately!

I woke up independently at 6:30 this morning and was ready to go NOW. I bathed, ate, brushed my teeth, put my shoes on, gathered all of my school supplies. ready.

Two things about my photo below:
1) I am still wearing my wristband from the Clallam County fair and I will never ever take it off.
2) People say my biceps look huge. I have been working out. Thanks for noticing!

I was the first student to arrive on campus. We got my locker set up and then my teacher invited me in to spend the next thirty minutes with her until school really started. I am trying my hardest to be her favorite student.

So far, I am overjoyed with my class. We get silent reading every day after lunch. The school has added more restaurants to the lunch delivery program. Cross country running starts in two weeks.

living and breathing baseball

Signing up for little league was the best decision I have ever made. The best decision the league ever made was putting me on the winningest team. When I am not in league practice or playing games, I can be found at the park practicing. On Sunday, I am registered for a batting workshop.

Until our tragic defeat on Thursday, we had not lost. While we had hoped to win all season long (win so much that we get tired of winning, as Trump might say), the loss wasn't really as bad as we expected. We didn't play well for the first two innings. It was like when the Seahawks lost to the Falcons in the playoffs this year, with Wilson being all butterfingers and every player making one careless mistake after another. We were down 6-0 at one point but caught up and we narrowly lost 6-5. sigh. painfully close.

Highlights of the season include:

* me scoring our team's first run of the season (we won that game 1-0)
* our 6-0 win against a team from one of the best leagues in town
* the kids' combo meal at the concession stand

This is a photo from our first away game. It was also my first effort as catcher. It is my favorite position. We won that game 6-0. (We have frequent shut out scores!) The hot dogs in that ballpark are cheaper than ours. And they have heated bathrooms and a fun playground. That ballpark is gearing up to host the little league world series in two years.



Me, up to bat. I am a reliable batter. I am usually the one who gets the first points of the game on the board.



I am always paired up with the same pitcher. He strikes all the kids out. We are the perfect pair because we are roughly the same size and we know each other well. We have made up our hand signals, which may or may not mean anything but parents think it is cute when we have our little conference on the pitcher's mound just before the inning.



 crossing home plate, how I do.

 

here comes the tooth fairy

Several days ago, my tooth became a bit wiggly. I thought I still had a week or more left. This morning, though, it became so wiggly that it was apparent that today was the day. My mom asked begged me to please try to keep the tooth in my mouth until I got home since I have lost both of my other teeth at school and she has missed out on all of the excitement. At the end of the school day, my tooth was lazing around on its side holding on with little more than a patch of blood.

Tonight, during dinner, I could not eat and I was on the verge of starvation from babying my tooth for days. Even yogurt sounded too dangerous. I left the table to go read. My dog bumped me. My tooth popped out.

After admiring how incredibly clean it is, I packaged up my tooth in tupperware and put it under my pillow.

I then returned to the dinner table and ate a massive bowl of spaghetti and almost an entire baguette to make up for everything I could not eat this week.

I am ready for the tooth fairy. So far, I have had pretty good luck with her. My first tooth earned me a Lego set. I traded my second tooth for a magic trick kit.

a real snow day. with snow.

In my last year of school in Texas, five snow days were called. five. all for nothing. Sometimes on the "snow days," the temperatures didn't even drop below 60 but panic would ensue when there was the remotest remote chance of snow.

On Friday, we got a real snow day. with snow.

This is what my mom saw when she got up at 5:00am. And, yes, someone had already been out clearing the sidewalk! What a hero!

Since the snow didn't look that dangerous, my mom went about getting things ready for my school day. My lunch was packed. Then my mom woke me up to tell me about the snow. I faked an illness. Symptoms included a racing heartbeat and difficulty breathing. (That didn't earn quite as much sympathy as I had expected.)

Once I was up and dressed for school, we got the good news that SCHOOL WAS CANCELLED. Bad timing, my mom thought, because there is no possible way to convince a child to go back to bed if there is snow on the ground. (Once school was cancelled, I was able to confess that I had fabricated my sob story about the racing heartbeat and my trouble breathing.)

We decided to walk to the donut shop. The snow continued to fall lightly throughout the morning until it turned to freezing rain, and then plain old boring rain.
I threw hundreds of snowballs.
I built the beginnings of a snow fort.

On our walk, we passed over the path we bike on to school. If you look closely at the photo below, you will see that people were out riding bikes in the snow.

And it might snow again between 4:00 and 9:00 tomorrow morning. We have already decided that I will not be woken up until we know if school is cancelled!