Heffrens Add Extra Dash Of "Bash" To Mother's Day

Mom's Day out in Goodfield gets more enjoyable every year as I become more firmly stitched into the family fabric. And it certainly gets more interesting too now that the nieces and nephews are old enough to play games and carry on conversation. This year I learned several new games of tag that I can try out as team-building exercises at work (as long as I can get them to sign waivers from workman's comp). More new this year was an impromptu game of T-ball. Like everything else from when I was ten years old, the tee looks a lot smaller. Tees simply weren't designed to host a game featuring both an 6-year old and a full-grown adult. Yet here we were, with the following teams:

Paige Sauder - 8
Courtney Heffren - 8
Macie Sauder - 11
Wade Sauder - 16
Joe McDonald - much older than 16

Elisabeth Freidinger - 6
Trevor Heffren - 6
Lane Young - 11
Thad Heffren - much older than 11

By the end of the first inning, my team was down by about 20 runs or so, with most of our defensive plays featuring at least one throw over someone's head and near a body of water. In later innings, Thad (who's the walking definition of country strong) and I finally figured out how to hit a ball thigh-high, helping to restore some dignity to our air-whiffing reputation. In Thad's case, this meant mad sprints by all fielders to the deepest part of the property whenever he came to the plate. Nonetheless, it was somewhat difficult to catch the ones that he launched across the street or over the house. Wade's young legs came in handy there.

Our team staged a remarkable rally as the game wore on... we might even have won, had anybody been keeping score. But Courtney - who ironically we adults had finally coached into not throwing her bat following her swings - smacked Paige right in the forehead with her follow-through. I like to think that this could've been avoided, had I not been on second base at the time, and Thad focusing on covering the entire infield for his near-hapless defensive squad. Amazingly, Paige didn't even show any signs of swelling by the end of the day, maybe thanks to the TLC and ice packs she quickly received. Whether Thad and my bodies will feel as good remains to be seen over the next few days...