A smile is worth everything.

I had one of those "Dad" moments yesterday, that I had to share. Mason is on a baseball team, and even though he doesn't seem to be paying any attention to the game during the game, he says he is having fun playing. Lets just say that Mason doesn't excel at baseball. I'm not convinced he even cares, he just wants to play. So we are at his game last night and he hits the ball 2 of the 3 times he is at bat, which is a huge improvement from Saturdays game when he was 0-3 with 3 strike outs. He might be the slowest kid in the whole league, so unless there is an error, which there usually is, he won't make it to first base before the ball does. His first at bat, 4 errors allowed him to get to 1st. Second at bat, dribbler to the pitcher who picked it up and threw it to first, out. I must say that the pitcher and first baseman for the 8 and under WDM Indians are the 2 best players in our league, as far as I've seen. As Mason runs from 1st to the dugout, he passes the pitcher who just threw him out. I see this kid stick out his had to give Mason a high five. New respect for this kid and his parents. Mason told me that the kid said "Nice try,"(no sarcasm) which I thought was cool. Marcy told me later that it's a kid in Mason's class, but still, the kid could have said, as Mason told me, "Nice try, sucker!" I don't know where he comes up with that, but its funny. The "Dad" moment was after the game. Mason was coming around the back stop with his snack, I leaned down and told him what a good job he did, and he had the biggest grin. You hear that the smallest things said can make all of the difference and it's times like this that makes you realize how true that is. If we were to focus on the one strike out, the 2 contacts with the ball would be missed, even if we said something good about it later. I really try to focus on the good, in everything, not just Mason's baseball, but I don't think the impact will be as noticeable as it was right then. You want so much for your kids, but when they struggle, you feel helpless to help them. I can't make Mason a great baseball player, I don't have the knowledge and he is a bit lacking in the speed department, but hopefully I can help him be a better person.