The Life Lessons of Baseball

Ok so it’s been awhile since I posted a blog. For the dozen or so people out there who actually follow my silly blog, I’m sorry. Now, I’d like to chalk up this inactivity to something really fantastic and “manly” like a monster project at work, or a big new promotion that had me traveling around the world managing hundreds of people, or a huge home renovation project or at the very least a vintage car restoration job. But sadly the ONLY excuse I have in regards to my summer blog hiatus is little league baseball. As in literally, I have coached or watched probably 80+ little league games since mid April. Okay, more like 50 little league games and another 30 or so high school games for my older son. But still, the real reason I haven’t been belting out blog posts is because I have been busy generating line-ups, and sending steal signals to my runners at first base, most of which by the way were ignored, and carpooling to and from practices and games, and pitching BP, and watching the games that I wasn’t coaching, and finally just trying to keep the dugout clean, which is frankly the hardest job any little league coach has, as I have decided that ALL personal responsibility goes out the door as soon as a 12-year old enters a dugout. Anything a parent may have taught their 12-year old son about cleanliness and personal hygiene and manners is expunged as soon as they step foot in a dugout. The stuff that I have heard and seen and have had to clean up after a seven-inning little league game is probably only matched by the poor SOB who is in charge of cleaning up the Champagne Room at a Vegas gentlemen’s club.

But the high school season, and the house league season, and the travel season are all finally over, so I can now get back to posting a blog or two. However all I really have to talk about is baseball. I don’t have any new stories that aren’t baseball related, and my only summer trip was to Cooperstown, NY for a baseball tournament, so literally, I have baseball on the brain.

So maybe my first post-baseball season blog is nothing more than a look back on the season that was. But frankly that would be pretty freaking boring and it would require me to reflect back on my older son breaking his thumb while attempting to turn a double play, and my younger son giving up not one, not two, not three but FOUR home runs to the same team in a tournament game in Cooperstown. Yeah, pretty sure a nostalgic look back is NOT what I need.

Come to think of it, maybe this first blog back is simply a nod to youth sports. Youth sports everywhere. Okay sure, I’ve said it before, I think youth sports is going to be the downfall of our country mainly thanks to out of control coaches, psycho parents, cocky kids and umpires and referees who at times don’t seem to know ANYTHING about the actual game which they are officiating. BUT . . . there is something awfully special about watching a young kid play a game. To see their determination and their intensity and their competitiveness is awesome. And to watch them celebrate when they win is inspiring. And to see their disappointment when they lose is heartbreaking. But what’s really special is to see how quickly they bounce back after defeat. Their smiles return moments after even the toughest of losses. And their desire to get right back out there even after they’ve given up the game winning home run (or in my son’s case, four of them) is amazing. But I guess that’s what youth sports is all about. That’s the REAL charm of youth sports. The ability to compete and yet forget when things don’t go your way.

However, as a youth baseball coach who from time to time ATTEMPTS to interject a few “life lessons,” a couple “nuggets of wisdom” beyond the field of play . . . and more importantly for blogging purposes . . . let me say this . . . ultimately this will change. Ultimately they will take the losses and the rejections and the missed opportunities WAY HARDER. Some of the best “Sportsisms” that all us coaches use when giving the team a pre or post game talk will no longer apply.

“Just Do It” will no longer be a shoe company’s slogan, but your Saturday night plea to your wife.

“Live Life Like a 3-1 Count” will no longer be good advice. Not if you want to keep your job.

“Marry a Girl Who Makes You Sleep on the Couch if You Strike Out Looking” – Give me a fucking break. If that’s the ONLY reason she’s making you sleep on the couch then you are a VERY LUCKY MAN! Seriously, who came up with this one?

“The Sound of a Baseball Hitting a Bat is the Heartbeat of America” – No, it’s taxes. And you pay them until you die.

“You Never Lose, You Either Win or You Learn” – Nope! You lose, and you lose a lot more than you win. And it sucks!

“Run Out on That Field Like You’re Eight Years Old and it’s Time for Recess” – What? Seriously? You stop running by the time you’re 15 because it’s not cool to run anymore, and a year or two later you don’t run at all because you have a driver’s license and there’s no need to run. And by the time you’re my age you don’t run, period, because your knees hurt, and you’re worried about having a “grabber.”

“A Coach’s Success is not Measured in the Number of Wins Produced, but in the Number of Winners Produced” – Well, I know a few coaches who might disagree with this, and I know a number of sales managers who would also take umbrage with this.

Yeah, in the end life gets in the way, and some of the air is taken out of your sails. It takes a little longer for that smile to come back after a tough loss, and you need some time to recover before getting back out there after a tough rejection.

So, if I had any real advice for the boys who I just finished coaching it would be this . . . Enjoy the game. Appreciate every minute of it. Have fun. Don’t take it too seriously. And above all remember, “The Name on the Front of the Jersey Represents who You Play for, The Name on the Back of the Jersey Represents who Raised You. Do Them Both Justice.”

Yeah, I like that. I like that one very much.

Should I Stay or Should I Quit

I was standing at the front door when both my boys came home last week from their first day of school. I was filled with excitement and nervousness. My youngest son is a 6th grader at the junior high, and I greeted him when he got home.

“How was your very first day at the junior high,” I said with more excitement then was probably necessary.

“I’m done dad,” he said very matter of factly.

“What do you mean? You’ve been there for ONE DAY!”

“Yeah I’m done. Not going back.”

About two hours later my older son who is a freshman in high school came walking through the door after a full day of school and two hours of soccer practice (he made the freshman team a week earlier despite not really knowing how to play soccer . . . I don’t have high hopes for the freshman soccer team).

“Well Chase, talk to me. Tell me everything. How was it?,” I asked again with the kind of excitement probably better saved for something a whole lot more important and exciting then completing one day of high school . . . . on a separate note, I may need to find a hobby so that I don’t scare my kids off with my over-zealousness in regards to how they spent their day at school.

“School was good dad, probably going to quit soccer.”

And just like that I had one kid ready to quit school altogether and another ready to quit freshman soccer less than a week after making the team.

I was being challenged. My kids were throwing down, and I needed to rise up. Be the kind of father who sits his kids down and says things like “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” I needed to be the guy who reminded them that “Once you quit one thing, then you can quit something else, and pretty soon you’ll get good at being a quitter.”

Here’s my chance to actually parent. Do something more than just be the guy who hands his 14-year old kid a bottle of lighter fluid without thinking when he says “Having trouble starting the grill dad.” And for the record his singed eyebrows did grow back.

And yet . . . . is quitting really all that bad? Is giving up a crime? Maybe we simply live in a society that tricks people with false notions of honor for sticking things out. Or for staying.

I say people who won’t walk out of a bad movie, put a boring book down halfway through it (and that’s a shout out to my wife who ROUTINELY complains about her boring books yet WON’T PUT THEM DOWN TO START A NEW ONE!!!) or search for a new porn clip when there’s a dull scene, are not heroes but rather victims of a “staying society.”

We shouldn’t commend those people, but rather ostracize them.

You know that guy in the office who is all bitter because he’s been there for 20 years and has never gotten the recognition he deserves? He’s a stayer!!! You know what stayers get . . . they get a gold watch, a great funeral or maybe a retired number.

You know what quitters get . . . time. They get time. There’s a lot of stuff to try out there, and you may not get to try it if you don’t quit what you’re doing now to pursue something else.

You know what Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, David Geffen, Larry Ellison and Ralph Lauren all have in common . . . well they’re all billionaires and they ALL QUIT college. America is about freedom and opportunity, which I’m pretty sure are just fancy words for quitting.

In fact, the next time I see my kid throw a board game and all its pieces into the air when he’s losing I’m not going to scold him, and call him a “poor sport,” but rather I’m going to commend him and tell him he’s probably the future leader of our country.

My wife pretty much quit giving me blow jobs once we got married, and I don’t think she regrets that decision. Come to think of it my to-do list consists mostly of things I need to quit . . . my landline, dessert, donuts, my porn habit, my cable service.

Obviously my 11-year old son is not going to quit the junior high. And I’m happy to report that my older son has decided to stick it out with the freshman soccer team, and I am convinced that he will be better for it (good work outs, some new friends, and a good way to get involved at a new school). And NO, I did NOT sit my kids down and advise them to turn and run every time things become difficult or unpleasant. All kidding aside, I don’t believe in that.

But I will say that while we may admire stayers, we celebrate winners, and maybe sometimes you gotta quit something before you can win. It’s called risk. Sometimes you have to quit the Cleveland Cavaliers to win with the Miami Heat. Sometimes being a quitter isn’t all that bad. Unless of course we’re talking about blowjobs in which case you’re just a sad, sad, sorry-ass quitter and you should be embarrassed and probably ashamed. Seriously!! Come on!!

I’m trying to figure out what to quit at this very moment so I can win something…anything…but nothing is coming to mind, so I’ll keep working on it.

A Letter To Jack

Like a lot of couples, my wife and I didn’t dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ before deciding to have kids.  Sure we definitely discussed some things . . . in fact I specifically remember asking her just how many times she thought we’d “need” to have sex before she got pregnant .  I could have sworn she said “a lot”, and yet I got her pregnant on literally the first try . . . I still feel like I was sold a rotten bag of goods on that one.  But we didn’t have every single aspect of raising a child covered before she and I started trying, which again lasted just one afternoon (on a coffee table during Kerry Wood’s major league debut – true story).

But one of the things she and I definitely reached an agreement on was that I would NOT be responsible for helping the kids with their school work.  I was not a good student, and that is an understatement.  I went to school to socialize, swim, look at girls and eat lunch, and not always in that order.  My wife, on the other hand, was a straight-A student who went on to graduate from Notre Dame.  She’s wicked smart.  I’m a total moron.  It took us about four seconds to agree that she would be in charge of helping the kids with their school work, while I simply promised not to reveal just how dumb I really was to the boys . . . though I think I may have given it away the day they caught me peeing in the utility sink in the laundry room.

However, this all changed last week when my wife asked me to write a personal letter to my 5^th grade son that would be shared with the class.  Now of course this isn’t really HIS homework, as the instructions for this letter specifically state that a parent needs to write it, but it’s still my first real school assignment, and it can be a poem, a letter or any other type of creative form used to talk to my child so that the class can learn more about him.

Cool.

So, of course the first thing I did was email the teacher and asked for an extension.  Seriously, I’m not about to get this done on time.  Please.  It doesn’t all change.  I’m still an awful student and totally incapable of turning in assignments on time.  This letter was due on Friday the 7^th.

Now that the extension has been granted, I’ve got a blank slate in front of me.  I could go in any number of directions here, and there are certainly plenty of directions to choose from.

Maybe this letter is nothing more than some fatherly advice.  After all I’ve made no secret of the fact that I believe parents have an obligation to pepper their kids with as much advice as possible.  Throw as much shit at the wall as you can, and eventually some of it sticks.  That’s my philosophy on advice.  So maybe this letter is nothing more than . . .

Respect your elders.

You will occasionally (sometimes more than occasionally) have to do things you don’t want to do.  Just don’t let it become a career.

Use an electric razor.

Send your mom a card or an email on her birthday.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. 

And don’t be afraid to swing at a ball on the outside of the plate. 

Exercise regularly.  It’s easier now to make it a habit than it will be when you’re older.

Don’t pass on an opportunity to top off your gas tank.  Running out of gas is an awful feeling . . . and frankly it’s embarrassing.

If you find a woman anything like your mom, don’t let her go.  They simply don’t come any better than that.

Get plenty of calcium.

Stretch.

Remember these words . . . ‘In five years will this matter?’

Avoid snobs, and don’t be snobbish yourself.

Until you move out of my house “Because I said so,” is a legitimate reason for doing what I say.

Then again maybe this is an opportunity to give him some advice regarding something that will no doubt frustrate him like nothing he’s dealt with before . . . girls.  Maybe this letter is nothing more than . . .

Sex isn’t as much fun with a condom, but peeing without it burning is.

When it comes to arguments with the opposite sex . . . remember you have the right to remain silent, anything you say WILL be misquoted and then used against you.

When it comes to the birds and the bees . . . remember, the bees sting.

80% of what happens in porn movies does not happen in real life.  And the other 20% probably won’t happen to you.

That advice will probably get me sent to the principal’s office (or at least a lot of angry calls from parents). Then again, maybe this letter isn’t a bunch fatherly advice.  Maybe this is simply an opportunity for me to tell his 5^th grade class a little about the kid that I like to call Happy Jack.  Maybe this letter is nothing more than . . .

I assume most of you know Jack pretty well.  After all, most of you have been in school with Jack since kindergarten.  You probably know Jack as the friendly kid who loves to goof around, hang around with friends, and is maybe even a little spacey.  Jack tends to ask a lot of questions partly because he’s curious and partly because he’s not always paying attention to the world around him.  We like to tease Jack that he seems to be living on “Planet Jack,” and as with most things in life, Jack takes our good-natured kidding in stride.  After all, one of Jack’s best qualities is his sense of humor.  He’s a funny kid with a laugh that can light up a room.  One of my favorite things to do is stand in the next room and listen to him laugh at one of his silly TV shows.  It’s hard not to smile when Jack’s laughing.

Of course, it’s not all fun and games with Jack, as he’s one of the most competitive kids I’ve ever met.  Since I know a number of you have been on soccer or baseball or flag football teams with Jack, I know you’ve probably seen that competitive fire before.  Now, no one likes to lose, but Jack hates it.  In fact I think Jack may hate to lose more than he likes to win.  Unfortunately, Jack sometimes likes to blame the umpires or referees when his team loses a game, but win or lose, Jack is always a great teammate and friend.  He’s quick to compliment a teammate after he makes a good play, and he’s just as quick to console a teammate after a strikeout and remind everyone that “we’ll get them next time” after a loss. 

Jack’s not just competitive out on the athletic field, but in pretty much anything he does.  In fact, get Jack involved in a game of Gin or Go Fish or Uno and you’ll see the cardshark in Jack come out.  He can spend all afternoon playing card games with anyone who’s willing to take him on.  And no one enjoyed this more than his Grandma Sharon.  Grandma Sharon could play card games with Jack until literally neither of them could shuffle a deck of cards anymore. 

When Grandma Sharon passed away three years ago, Jack, like everyone else in the family, took it hard.  However, he held up just fine.  In fact, Jack smiled and even let out that trademark laugh of his a few times during the funeral when funny stories about his Grandma Sharon were shared by other family members.  When the funeral was over Jack was the first person to find his mom.  Jack grabbed his mom’s hand and said “Don’t worry mom, it will be okay.”

For just one day, I would give anything to be on Planet Jack.  It must be a wonderful place.

Yeah, that’s what this letter should be.

Love, Kids & Sex . . . Pick 2

In my late 20’s and early 30’s I worked at a downtown advertising agency on the account service side of the business.  Like a lot of advertising agencies the pace was pretty hectic, and when the client said “jump” you pretty much asked “how high.”  And while our number one goal was trying to meet every single client demand, at the end of the day you pretty much had to tell the client “You can have it Good, you can have it Fast, and you can have it Cheap . . . now pick two . . . because you can’t have all three.”

Now obviously we never said that specifically to the client, who of course ALWAYS wanted ALL three, but when push came to shove you knew you weren’t going to be able to deliver all three.  And if you think about it, it makes sense.  You can have it good and fast, but it’s not going to be cheap.  Or you can have it cheap and fast, but then it’s not going to be good.  And I guess you can even have it good and cheap, but it may not be that fast.  It’s a silly saying that I have to imagine is muttered in the hallways and conference rooms of all sorts of different client service like businesses, but again, it’s fairly accurate.

So the other day when I nuzzled up to my wife and whispered a few “sweet nothings” in her ear (and by the way that’s code for the other day I smacked my wife on the ass and said “let’s go have sex”) only to get shot down due to the fact that my kids were playing video games in the basement it hit me . . . . You can have Love, you can have Kids, and you can have Sex . . . now pick two . . . because you can’t have all three.

Think about it.  You can have love and kids, but you can’t have sex.  I think this is the option that most couples settle into after they have kids.  The love and kids phase starts when your wife gives birth and probably doesn’t end until you’re empty-nesters some 20+ years later.  This is the phase when you’re a happily married couple raising kids on some nice, tree-lined street somewhere.  There’s either a mini-van or an SUV in the driveway.  Weekends are spent on the sidelines of some soccer field or baseball diamond or ice rink watching the kids play.  You and your wife shoot for date night once a week, but really only go out together twice a month, and usually you talk about the kids.  You maybe have sex once a week.  You talk about having it more, and in fact both of you are in agreement that more sex would be good, but it’s just talk.  Soon after the “more sex talk” you’re synching your Blackberry to the updated soccer carpool schedule.  But damnit, you’re in love, and you have kids.

Now you could opt for sex and love, but now you don’t have any kids.  Typically we call this “being 20-something,” but that’s not always true.  There are plenty of people who simply choose not to have kids.  Regardless of age, if you’ve gone this route then you’re in love and having sex like you’re the last two people on earth, and the future of mankind is depending on you.  Sure there’s no one to carry on your family name, and you’re missing out on all the wonderful things that come with parenthood, but you love your spouse and . . . oh yeah . . . by the way . . . you just had sex 30 minutes ago . . . and probably will do it again later that night.

Or you could go with sex and kids, but then I think you’re probably in some sort of an arranged marriage.  Seriously if you have kids and you’re still having a ton of sex WITH YOUR SPOUSE (yeah it doesn’t count if you’ve got some sort of “friends with benefits” arrangement on the side) then I’m willing to bet that you’re in a marriage that was set up by your parents and in-laws years ago.  You have no idea what your spouse’s middle name is, you’re not entirely sure whether or not they went to college and when you get drunk you sometimes blurt out “Who are you again?”  So sure, your kids are happy, and you’re “doing it” more than Charlie Sheen says “Winning,” but you literally draw a blank when someone asks you, “So how did you two meet?”

I guess in the end, like the song, “2-out-of-3 ain’t bad.”  Hey, that advertising agency that I worked at serviced a lot of happy clients using that method.  Maybe in life, 2-out-of-3 ain’t so bad either.   Unfortunately, like another song, my favorite two are “I want it fast and hard.”   So I guess I want it all, all the time.  I’ll keep trying.

We Should Have Had Another Baby

I don’t like to fight with my wife, and in fact, like most men I know, I will go to great lengths to avoid a fight (which typically means I’ll apologize for stuff that I didn’t really do just to avoid the verbal confrontation).  However, I do admit that I enjoy saying things that get a rise out of her.  If she’s not feeling well and lying on the couch, I’ll say something like, “So I assume this means you’re not making me breakfast?”  Or if she’s running late in the morning I’ll say, “So morning sex is out?”  Or if she’s in the kitchen making dinner I’ll say, “I think it’s safe to assume that I’ll be calling Domino’s if that doesn’t taste better than it looks.” 

Yeah, I “push the envelope” with a few of my comments, and it’s worth noting that my neighbor has told me that she considers my wife a “saint” for being married to me, but I’m really not trying to start a fight with my comments.  It’s just my way of poking fun.  A roll of the eyes, a sigh under her breath, a quick retort of “whatever,” is all I’m looking for.  And frankly the easiest way to illicit that kind of reaction from my wife is to remind her that “we should have had another baby.”  Whether we’re with someone with a baby, see a baby on TV or whether she’s looking through some catalog with baby clothes, nothing gets her all worked up more than my “we should have had another baby” comment.  It’s pretty much a sure thing.  Even though I’ve NEVER given ANY thought to having a third child, I do like to remind my wife that “we should have had another baby.”

But for the first time ever, I actually started to wonder whether my wife and I should have had a third child, after my 12-year-old son essentially spent the entire weekend with friends.  And it wasn’t just the fact that he was spending a lot of time with friends, as he’s always enjoyed his pals, but rather it was how he was acting.

Like most 12-year-old boys, my son is a goofball.  He says and does some really silly things (in fact “silly” is an understatement), but quite honestly I’ve always enjoyed that.  It’s a reminder that he is, after all, still a goofy kid.  He’s still “my little man.” And of course, I can identify with 12-year-old humor.

But last weekend he not only spent a lot of time out of the house, when I did see him he seemed different.  And I can’t exactly pinpoint it.  I think it was a combination of him not being around for much of the weekend, coupled with the fact that he seemed to be trying to act less silly.  Now I know he’s starting to get into the girls, and I know there is one particular 12-year-old girl he likes (and spent a lot of time with her over the weekend), and no doubt he’s trying to “be cool” for her.  But literally it’s like he went to bed one kid, and woke up another kid. 

Now I’ve been somewhat prepared for this.  I’m not totally unrealistic here.  I knew that at some point my son was going to choose to spend less time with me, and I knew that it was just a matter of time before my son considered me to be the “boring and embarrassing guy.”  And while I would like to remind him that I wasn’t always this boring, but got this way from paying his bills, cleaning his clothes and listening to him talk about how “cool” he thinks he is, I’m still not sure I’m ready for all this to happen just yet.

I guess I was targeting high school as the time when all of this change would occur.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure my son is on the same page.

I was out to dinner with my dad the other night and I was talking to him about this very subject, and I said, “Boy dad, I think we’re losing Chase.”  He thought about my comment for a couple seconds and then said, “Clay, I never thought your mother and I were losing you and your sister as the two of you got older.  I just recognized that things were changing, and I made sure to enjoy that part of your life with the two of you.”

I thought about it for a second and realized that maybe my dad is right.  Change is inevitable, so why fight it?  Or why get all depressed over it?  Maybe this is one of those things where you sort of “go with the flow” and enjoy it?  There’s going to be lots of great new stuff my son Chase starts to experience over these next few years and instead of bemoaning the fact that he’s no longer my “little man,” maybe I should start enjoying the fact that he’s actually becoming a “little man.”

Besides. . . . did my freaking father just give me some heart-felt advice?  What?  Come again?  Were he and I having some sort of a break-through over cheeseburgers?  Are the planets out of alignment?  Am I on the verge of experiencing a whole new relationship with BOTH my son and my father?  What’s going on?

“Then again, Clay,” my father concluded, “I never liked you and your sister much when you were younger anyway, so I was really looking forward to when you two got older.”

Nope.  Back to normal.  The planets are aligned once again.    But I will take his advice and try to enjoy the new experiences Chase will have as he gets older.  Or maybe we’ll just have to have another kid to replace him.

I Survived

So my 11-year old son and I were driving together recently and we passed by some big, smelly industrial plant.  The plant’s two smoke stacks were spewing out God knows what, but there was a serious amount of stuff billowing out into the air.  My son looked at it and said, “Hey dad look, cloud makers.”

Now I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he was at least partially kidding as he’s in the sixth grade and should know that clouds do not come from industrial smoke stacks, but no question there was at the very least some innocence behind his comment.

Just a few days later my eight-year old son was watching TV when a commercial for the human society came on.  It was one of those commercials that tugs at your heart strings by showing pictures of sad looking dogs that have been abused and mistreated.  After the commercial was over my son said “Those were cute dogs, I liked that commercial.”  Once again there was a fair amount of innocence there. 

But those two comments by my sons left me to wonder whether that was youthful innocence talking, or sheltered existence?  It seems to me it maybe a little bit of both, which is fine (especially the innocence part), but maybe it’s time to ease up on the sheltering.

After all they are getting older, and maybe it’s time to be more honest with them and worry less about their feelings and their “fragile egos.”  My dad didn’t worry about my “fragile ego” when I was growing up.  When it came time to get me ready for baseball, he went out and bought a dozen hardballs and spent the afternoon throwing them at me.  I survived.  Of course I never played organized baseball again, but I’m fine.

When I expressed an interest in playing platform tennis he told me I wasn’t old enough (I was about 10).  When I persisted he brought me out onto the paddle court, had me stand at the net, and fired forehand drives at me.  When I failed to volley them back he told me to get off the court.  I survived.  Of course it took me 15 years before I got back on the court, but I’m fine.

When I brought my first girlfriend over to the house he sat her down and said, “What the hell are you doing with this asshole?”  I survived, and she and I dated for two years before she dumped me like a bag of rocks.  Of course, he asked the exact same question of my next girlfriend and I wound up marrying her.  So again, I survived.

When he dropped me off at college my freshman year, he shook my hand before departing and said, “Don’t come home without calling first.”  I survived.  I just didn’t go home a lot.

And when he gave me the “bird’s and bee’s” talk he said, “Whatever you do, don’t get a girl pregnant.  Of course I don’t know who would have sex with you, but assuming you can find someone to have sex with, don’t get them pregnant.”  Okay.  I survived. 

So maybe it’s time I stop sheltering or coddling the boys.  Maybe the next time they ask to do something or they ask me for an opinion on something I just lay it all out for them.

“Hey dad, what did you think of my little league game?” 

“Listen, it was awful.  You were awful, but don’t worry about it, you’re all awful.  It’s 11-year old little league baseball.  I’ve yet to see an inning where an error isn’t made or where someone doesn’t strike out or someone doesn’t throw a wild pitch.”  It’s little league.  It’s awful.”

“Hey dad, I’m going to dance assembly this weekend.” 

“Why?  I’ve seen you dance, and it’s embarrassing.  If I were you I wouldn’t go.” 

“Dad, I don’t like what we’re having for dinner tonight.”

“Me neither, but you have to eat it because you don’t have a car and your own money.  Have fun, I’m heading to McDonald’s.”

“Dad, what do you think about my grades?”

“Well you’re not a complete moron, but based on these grades you’re not particularly bright.”

I don’t know.  Maybe that’s not the answer.  Maybe just a little tough-love from time to time will suffice so they don’t turn out to be wimps.  Then again, I survived.  On the other hand, sheltering my kids from the cold, cruel world until they are better equipped to deal with it isn’t such a bad thing . . .