We survived!

We survived our first softball practice! It was actually really fun. :) About 20 minutes before practice started, it was hailing big time - yikes. We weren't sure how that was going to go. But it stopped and actually got a little sunny out, so by the time we started it was chilly, but tolerable. We met under a pavillion with picnic tables, and we had a little meeting with the parents and had them fill out forms. While I was collecting the forms, Geoff said "all the little girls come with me!" and they were so funny, they just lined up behind him. Then we walked over to the field and he started practice. He had them throwing the ball to each other for a while. There were only 9 of them there, so I had to throw with one for a while. After a few minutes she said to me "this is kinda easy..." so I suggested we move back. Then I felt bad for her that she had to be with me, so we rotated partners. At that point another player was quietly saying "Coach? Coach?" to Geoff, and I pointed her out to Geoff. Geoff said "what's up?" to her and she said "um, I'm bleeding." So I went over to her to see what was wrong. She had a small cut or hangnail on her thumb, so I took her off the field. Her mom was right there and had a band-aid in her purse (we had a first aid kit in the car, from now on we'll bring that out to the field!) so she fixed her right up. That girl is the cutest thing Geoff and I have ever seen... we both think she's our favorite. She's the smallest one (she's only 6!) and Geoff at first thought "oh great..." but then he saw her throw! He claims she can throw the ball further than I can, which may be true! After throwing for a while, we started batting practice. Geoff had the girls line up in a semi-circle in the field and had one player bat at a time. He was great when he worked with them, he made sure their feet were in the right place, that they were holding the bat correctly, etc. The bat was too big for the tiny girl, but she had her own bat so she used that. The other girls were getting cold and bored during batting practice (whoever wasn't batting) so Geoff would occasionally throw a ball out there just to keep them somewhat entertained. They would throw it back and sometimes Geoff wouldn't be paying attention and it would go over his head or whatever - ohhhh how they all giggled every time that happened. They thought Geoff was hilarious. Geoff claims that little girls like him because he has ALL girl cousins (at least on his dad's side) so he knows how to interact with them. Anyway, it was quite cute, and in 20 year or so I might have some competition for my husband. ;-) Then we worked on throwing grounders for a while. At this point it was about 6:40, and practice was supposed to end at 7, but the girls were all freezing and all of the parents were there so Geoff let them go home. That worked out well. At the end of practice one of the moms talked to us about more ideas for drills and said that she'd love to help us (she had thrown her back out this week so couldn't help last night but wants to in the future). It was definitely a good first practice, and our real goal was to see what skill level the girls had (a lot of them have played before, so that was good to find out... they acted like they would be comfortable with a pitch rather than a tee, so that's cool, we'll try that at the next practice) and how they interacted and what it was like to entertain ten 6 - 9 year olds for an hour and a half. :) Geoff will be on his own this Friday since I'll be out of town (hehehe) but then I'll be back for next week! We haven't picked a practice schedule for next week yet but we'll figure something out. This week Monday and Friday worked but starting next week there will be conflicts every day but Friday, so we'll miss at least one girl every week. We'll figure it out!