"Swing the damn bat."
"If you watch one more strike fly by without swinging, you will have to find someone else to pay for Fall ball, because it won't be me."
"Wake up in the out-field."
"I've seen your sister throw harder than that."
You get the idea. I spend a good deal of my time chasing the two kids not on the field around the park and thinking of nice ways to tell the one on the field he's sucking it up.
The hubby throws the kid 800 pitches a night. He hits 790 of them. Still he freezes up in the game and it just gets ugly. Last night, they were behind by one run. Two outs, bases loaded. My sweet boy watched as three strikes flew by. Never swung the bat. Never. Swung.
Needless to say, I was already in a stellar mood when some woman stomped up to me, hands on her hips, "Just so you know, your son just pushed the 911 button."
"Um, okay. I'll talk to him."
"He would NOT listen when I told him to stop. The police will have to come out. You need to wait and tell them what HE did" she said as she jerked her head towards my flapping, circle running son.
"Okay. We'll wait and explain.Thanks."
She stood there staring, hands still on hips, eyebrows raised, lips pursed. I think she was expecting me to give Miles the shake down. Give it to him good.
It wasn't going to happen. I didn't even want to try to explain to this ninny that, oh he's autistic, so he wasn't ignoring you he probably just didn't realize you were talking to him
I took great pleasure in watching her stomp off, mad that I had not properly disciplined my little heathen.
When she was gone, I explained the button to Miles. We waited for the police, glad it wasn't a real emergency as he took his sweet-ass time getting there.
We did not get thrown in jail.
I told Miles that he may need to use that button again next week, because if his brother watches one more strike go by and doesn't swing the bat, I just might beat him with it.
Please note that I don't ever actually yell those comments at my son. I just wish I could. I did however really threaten to beat him with the bat. He knew I was kidding. For the most part. Also, I don't take calling 911 lightly. I just didn't appreciate the way the woman behaved.
Very nice intertwining of the two stories. I think you handled both situations with grace, though there is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with yelling "SWING THE DAMN BAT!" now and again. My son had the opposite problem, though, he swung at EVERYTHING. It was okay if the kid on the other team was throwing strikes, but when he's hacking at balls a foot over his head?
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Oh that is so hard, the judgement, the assumptions, the misunderstandings. I remember when Clay had really high muscle tone when he was younger and his therapist had us use these straps for his legs on his wheelchair so he couldn't extend his legs and hurt himself and we were at the mall and someone started telling us how horrible we were for "straping our son down." It was awful. Sometimes the world seems such an angry place. Its really hard for us moms, and for our kids too. Its hard enough, without being judged like that.
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ReplyDeleteThat's all I've got for this story.
I'm with you all the way.