It can be almost painful to watch your little tikes play organized sports.  I sit on the sidelines in my pop-up camp chair gripping the arms, a mere nano-second away from launching out of the chair to either swing the bat for my kiddo or viciously destroy the pitching machine that I’m sure has it out for him.

There is a real finesse to parenting an elementary school-aged athlete.  And I use the term “athlete” verrrrrry loosely.

It takes a lot of patience.  And then some patience.  And then a lot more patience.  Oh, and patience.

Because there is a lot of swinging and missing.  And catching and missing.  And throwing and missing.  And missing and missing.

But there’s also a whole lot of smiles.  And high-fives.  And teamwork.  And there’s a big bunch of proud moments.

And that’s little league baseball.

Mindy