Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Slow & steady wins the race...but is so frustrating!

Tonight was baseball night. I have yet to bring the camera to one of Jake's games - this is shocking to me that I keep forgetting it, but I do. So a post in the future will actually discuss his game skills. Tonight we are going to discuss speediness - or lack thereof.

In my family we often joke about Jake living in "Jake's World". He moves at his pace, when he wants and you CANNOT rush him. It's next to impossible. You can prod, you can strongly suggest he move faster, and in a real pinch you can get irritated and loudly tell him to move his rear. Rarely does it produce results. He'll turn around and tell us that he just doesn't like to rush. He's even told us it's unhealthy to rush.

Before leaving for baseball one of us takes Jake aside and calmly discusses how he needs to move a little faster when playing. He can't saunter in from the field when they change innings. If his coaches say "hustle" that means "move fast". We've even defined "fast" for him. It just doesn't matter. During the game as he meanders out to field we'll yell, "Jake - get a move on!" He just looks at us like we are speaking a foreign language.

ONE day my efforts paid off. I explained to Jake how if he is the last off the field, he'll be last to bat and may not get to bat that inning if they get all the outs. For that one game he actually ran in from field and the first inning change I was shocked and thrilled! Not ten seconds after the kids were in the coach decided this was the game he was going to produce a list with an actual order to batting - guess who he put last?!? I kid you not - Jake ended up last in the batting order that day; this did not produce the see-what-happens-when-you-move-at-the-world's-pace lesson I had hoped to get through to Jake - and we are back to lolly gagging.

However, he does actually run around the bases so we know he's capable of that action. I guess we'll have to be happy with that for now.

Some people hope for world peace - we'll keep hoping for world pace.

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