It's Me!

It's me.  I confess.  I'm THAT MOM!

Our extended family has called me "OSHA" for years (Occupational Safety and Health Administration).  With little ones, I obessed about choking hazards and electrical outlets.  I'm still diligent about carseat safety.  My poor kids ride in booster seats until they reach 4 feet 9 inches and don't even get to claim "shot gun" until they are over 5 feet tall.  (Air bags!)

Well...it happened at Josiah's first baseball game.

We've had so much rain that his first two games were washed out.  (Yuck!  That means they'll be rescheduled into the heat of July.)  I was a little happy that the game he was supposed to play while we were out of town was cancelled because the mama loves to watch her kids, and I hated to miss out on his first game.

Thursday night, the game started.  Yeah!  Loving watching my boy standing in left field. 

Until...one of the other teams players batted with a wooden bat.  I was sure the umpire would say something...but he didn't.  Another player used the wooden bat again. 

Okay, if you don't know anything about baseball stuff.  Wooden bats are prohibitted from lots of little leagues, high school, and college leagues because the bats can break.  Even in the majors, there is some concern about the dangers of the wooden bat.

I tried to control myself.  Really, I did.  But all the players were being put at risk, and the rules prohibitted using wooden bats.

So...I made Christopher go talk to the coah...well, the assistant coach because our coach was out to town.  He had no clue and even handed Christopher his copy of all the rules.

Oh!  That was just like giving me candy!  A pile of paper with bunches of words does not deter me.  It inspires me to find that rule!  I poured over the pages...skimming rule after rule...page after page.

AH HA!  There it was!  The metal bat rule!

Now I made Christopher go talk to the umpire.  It's amazing when I, little old me who is a girl who should know nothing about complicated sports stuff, knows more than the big, manly-man, guy who should know all the rules.  Right? 

Well, the sticky part of the night was that the bats had actually been supplied to the team from the league!  NOT JOKING!  So the umpire didn't want to force them not to use them until they could get replacements for any wooden bats they had been given.

Now, please know that I didn't want to penalize the other team.  I was truly concerned about the safety of all the kids...and the umpire.  There is a reason for the rule. 

Still...I felt like THAT MOM!

I was ever so thankful to see that the team's coach had them stop using the wooden bat.  Wow!  That's hard to do when your kids have practiced with it and chosen it as their favorite. 

Coach, I don't know who you are, but I think you're pretty awesome!  Thanks for putting the kids' safety first.