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Baseball for MY Kids!
Apr. 3rd, 2005 12:56 amA parents group we go to got us hooked up with champion league baseball, which is a league for disabled children. Everyone bats, everyone fields. No, it's not "real" baseball, it's the pleasure of hitting and running and being with friends like you with parents who understand why you're peculiar.
It's also a chance to see non-handicapped people, who we adults of handicapped children learn to be cautious of, in a whole new, a generous and unprejudiced, light.
The buddies who help the kids are siblings, parents, adult and young adult volunteers. How cool is it, how cool it is, to see middle and high schooler students helping out. The kind of kids stereotyped as self-interested. The kind I honestly look at with some envy and suspicion.
The first surprise was a t-shirt and a cap for Boy Child, and a Buddy shirt for Girl Child and no one asked for a check. There's ALWAYS someone asking for money, it seems. Not this time. I thought there must be a mistake.
As our game was ending, children and parents from the t-ball league started filtering in and sitting down. I steeled myself for what I was sure were the inevitable cracks about the kids playing ball.
And nothing happened. They just sat.
I asked a mom I knew from parenting group, about how champ league was funded. A grant? (That's how our parent's group is.)
No.
Turns out, there used to be a $5. fee. Then, the "regular" leagues got together and decided to pay a tiny bit extra per player to furnish champ league players and buddies with tees, caps, and field time.
*sniff*
I learned my lesson. Dammit.
It's also a chance to see non-handicapped people, who we adults of handicapped children learn to be cautious of, in a whole new, a generous and unprejudiced, light.
The buddies who help the kids are siblings, parents, adult and young adult volunteers. How cool is it, how cool it is, to see middle and high schooler students helping out. The kind of kids stereotyped as self-interested. The kind I honestly look at with some envy and suspicion.
The first surprise was a t-shirt and a cap for Boy Child, and a Buddy shirt for Girl Child and no one asked for a check. There's ALWAYS someone asking for money, it seems. Not this time. I thought there must be a mistake.
As our game was ending, children and parents from the t-ball league started filtering in and sitting down. I steeled myself for what I was sure were the inevitable cracks about the kids playing ball.
And nothing happened. They just sat.
I asked a mom I knew from parenting group, about how champ league was funded. A grant? (That's how our parent's group is.)
No.
Turns out, there used to be a $5. fee. Then, the "regular" leagues got together and decided to pay a tiny bit extra per player to furnish champ league players and buddies with tees, caps, and field time.
*sniff*
I learned my lesson. Dammit.
