Reading and Softball

The TV moratorium continues. For the children. Not for Mommy. I got home this past Friday night and turned the TV on and sat blindly in front of it just trying to soak up as much mindless stupidity as possible, went over to Guy #1's house on Saturday and sat in front of his TV, and then came home and did it all over again at my house on Saturday night and most of Sunday, except for when I finally dragged my ass outside to cut the grass. I really don't mind cutting the grass, but that first cut in the spring is the hardest cut to make, because now I know it's on, at least until mid-September.  And last night? After the children went to bed? The TV was ON.

But the ban is working. I am seeing my children go back to normal childhood activities like playing outside in the yard, playing with Barbies, coloring and drawing, and reading. My younger daughter has suddenly developed a strong desire to be read to, and to try to read along with Mommy. My older daughter has started to make picking up a book an option now, and before the ban, it wasn't an option to her. And she's actually reading the book and not just staring at it like I suspected last week when this whole thing got started. I know this because she'll periodically read a sentence out loud and ask me if I think it's funny, or she'll have me come over to tell her what a word is. So the reading train is finally back on the right track.

I've told a lot of people about my decision for the family to say goodbye to television, and most of them have looked at me like I'm crazy, and The Ex asked if that was a little extreme, and for real, while it sounds extreme, it isn't. I've tried scaling back on television before, and it never worked. Because slowly, or sometimes quickly, the TV became a priority again and everything else fell by the wayside. Right back to square one. The other bonus is that they've stopped asking me for every dumb toy they see on all the commercials, which is awesome, especially for them because the answer was always a resounding NO.

I went to a softball game this evening, because Guy #1 officiates as his part-time summer job, and well, I figured I could sit on my ass and watch. I haven't been to a softball game since 1990 as a very best guess. I dated a guy while I was in high school who played for the fire department leagues and whatever kind of leagues they put together out in the country, but after we broke up, that was the end of me going to watch softball games. I never went to any of the softball games in high school because none of my friends played, and I didn't even remotely hang out with those girls. The girls who played softball were always the same girls who played volleyball, and we were not in same social strata. I never had any desire to play softball myself, because I might get dirt on me and I'm sorry, but softball uniforms are just ugly. There is no amount of hair spray, makeup and jewelry that can make a softball uniform cute. That, and I've always felt like softball was the seperate-but-not-equal counterpart of baseball. I'm sure it's not, and that softball and baseball have some differences, but I've always thought softball was just another term for bitchball. Needless to say, I've never been a big fan of softball, and when all of my previous workplaces put together teams to go and play other workplaces, I've been the first to pass. A big fat no-thank-you-and-don't-ask-me-again.

But this is one of those weeks that because of my work schedule, Guy #1's work schedule, and our respective schedules with our respective children, we will only get to see each other once or twice, for a few hours here or there. So I'll snag a couple of hours to go and watch a softball game if that's what it takes to end up in a cute little Mexican restaurant after it's all said and done. The game today was at a private Christian school, and my god, those girls need to do some praying. Because they sucked. I wanted to ask the coach of one of the teams if they had even practiced at all this season, what with their pitcher foul-walking (or whatever it's called) every girl who went up to bat. Holy fuck. I wanted to stand up, call a quick little time out and run over to The Ex's to get my younger daughter because she could play better than some of those kids. And she's never played softball before. Seriously, it was that painful to watch. The mind-numbing slowness of the game simply served to remind me that I hate softball and that Nascar is more of a sport than softball is. The team that was batting would line up behind the fence, waiting their turn to bat, and would sing these little cheer-chants together, I guess because they don't have cheerleaders. Nah, it was to psych the other team out, but really, I thought it was just rude. And with my one season of cheer coaching behind me, thus making me an *expert* on cheer chants, the little chants the girls were calling were really bad. Pray about that, too, girls. You all need skillz. Badly.

Next time I do this, probably within the next month or so, I'll be taking my folding chair and a book. Bleachers suck and there's no TV. But there is Guy #1, and that's why I'll go again.