T-Ball in da 'Hood

I've mentioned my weight struggle in quite a few posts over my blogging lifetime. I don't think I look like I weigh what I way, but the scale doesn't lie. Nor does my body. And it's especially hard knowing that I'm up 30+ El Bees since my high school graduation 7 short years ago. I wanted to get down to 180 by the time Toby was born, but that didn't happen... and I've forgiven myself... but at some point, if I want to live to see my potential grandchildren, I need to change some eating/exercise habits.

(This blog will not be a place where I update you about how many calories I consumed, how I felt while scaling the steps at work, how many pounds I'm up or down, etc. Rm113 is a place for me to talk about my faith, family, friends, and experiences. I'm not gonna go all wacky on you, faithful readers. Well, no wackier than I already am.)

I know how much Robyn loves to take walks. My doctor recently said I need to take some long walks to burn fat. Sounds like a plan, right? Make the wifey happy and get much needed exercise to boot? Plus, I get to wear an additional 20-something pounds worth of The Tobe, which helps get the heart pumping even more.

Whenever possible, the 3 of us are going on hourlong walks around College Hill. By foot, we're investigating sidestreets that we've only seen while cruising by in our cars. It's been really great... sometimes we discover random gardens in peoples' yards... sometimes we discover that random sidestreets are connected to each other... and tonight we found the best thing EVER:

Kids playing T-ball. You want to be entertained? Go find a neighborhood T-ball game. Ya know how in beginners soccer all the kids swarm towards the ball, regardless of what their position is? T-ball is alot like that. Except all the kids swarm toward the "pitcher's mound" (which isn't really a mound at all, nor does the pitcher pitch) with the exception of the kid in right field who was playing in the dirt. Among the funnies we saw in the 2 innings we attended (in which a grand total of 2 outs were made) were the following.

• Kid: (while looking toward the other field where kids were kicking a soccer ball) "I wanna play soccer..."
  Coach Dad: "Well, we're playing T-ball right now."
• We saw a little blond girl trying to run the bases as her helmet was falling off.
• We saw a little boy throwing dirt into the air over and over again. The coach had to call time when the kid got too much in his eyes and couldn't see anymore.
• Of course, almost every batted ball was a weak grounder back to the pitcher, and all but 2 of these went for singles.
• There were several very satisfying instances of the tee going farther than the ball.
• The aforementioned little blond girl ran from 3rd base to home by zigzaging back and forth from the pitchers mound to the dugout to avoid the catcher's tag. She was called safe.

Why would I pay hard-earned money to drive downtown, park my car, attend GABP to watch the Reds lose to the freaking Royals when I could walk down the street with my wife to watch 5-year-olds play T-ball for free? Robyn asked how much season tickets were to go to T-ball games. I told her it was free. We'll go again soon.

Is it too early to sign up The Tobe for the 2011 T-ball season? I'll even volunteer to coach...