Backyard Baseball

Ever wonder what I do with all the batting practice balls my kids and I collect? Well, I turn some of them into Cut-Balls. A long time ago when I was in elementary school, some kids made these so that we could play with them at recess (they wouldn't let us play with hard balls). My brothers and I kept playing this new Cut-Ball game all the way through High School. Scott and I have even introduced our PE classes to the game. To make a Cut-Ball, you cut the stitching to and take the cover off. Then you stuff a sock or something soft inside an sow it back together. It makes the ball squishy.

These Cut-Balls are also great for practicing catch without the fear of getting hurt - pretty important for preschoolers. And they make a great ball for playing in the backyard.

Now we can play baseball almost anywhere -- and we have. Below are some pictures of my kids (mainly Tommy) playing baseball in our backyard and in various places across the country.

Here is Tommy pitching to his friend Noah in Colorado.In the picture above Stacy (Tommy's 2nd cousin once removed) pitching to Tommy in Steve and Dee Dee's back yard. Dee Dee is Kim's 1st cousin once removed. Below is Tommy pitching to Samantha. Samantha is Tommy's 3rd cousin and Stacy's niece. It is all very confusing, but everyone got along great even if they didn't know how they were related.Tommy played ball with his first cousin JD in Atlanta. First they played in JD's front yard . . .and then Tommy got a game going at JD's Church.
Tommy loves to have people play baseball with him. He even got his Nana to play with him in our backyard.

Now Tommy likes to dress up when he plays.

Here is Tommy in action.

Tommy even wanted to play baseball in the snow.

The Traveling Hat

Last Spring I bought a hat for my youngest son Casey. When I saw the cartoon Little Bill, I thought it was so cool that his hat had a "B" on it for Bill. Well his shirt has a "B" on it in the picture to the left but trust me, his hat had a "B" as well, I just couldn't find a picture of it online. A couple years ago I bought my son Tommy a Texas Rangers hat because it had a "T" for Tommy. Tommy always referred to it as his "T" hat. So since my wife is a Cubs fan a Cubs hat made sense for Casey.

Here is a picture of Casey wearing the hat out on our patio. But Casey doesn't really like to wear hats, so his "C" hat ended up on the ground shortly after I put it on his head.

However my $5.99 has not gone to waste. Other people have taken to wearing Casey's hat, and on the trip that my family and I took last summer, the hat ended up on several kids' heads in several interesting places. Here are a few of them.

Casey's sister Alina decided she wanted to wear Casey's hat to the Cubs game. We saw the Cubs play the Reds at Wrigley field in early July. Here is Alina in Casey's hat.

Casey's new friend David wore the hat on a trip to Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. David is the firstborn son of Nick and Rachel. Kim used to baby sit for Nick when he was little, now Kim and Nick have kids about the same age. Here is David in Casey's hat.

We visited Casey's other cousins in Atlanta on our trip. Most of Casey's cousins live close to us in California. J.D. is the oldest of Casey's cousins and he took a liking to Casey's hat as well. Here is J.D. sporting Casey's hat at the top of Stone Mountian in Georgia.

Casey's brother Tommy loves to wear hats. He managed to find Casey's hat when we made our final site seeing stop of our summer road trip. Here is Tommy wearing Casey's hat at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Kimberly and Erica

Although this blog is supposed to be about baseball and ballparks, I cannot help but post another entry about my new daughter Erica, and my wife Kim's efforts in bringing her here.

Erica is our fourth child, so we have already been through the birth process several times. Somehow this time it seemed like forever before our baby finally arrived. At my school, another teacher's wife was due two days before Kim. So he and I had a little friendly competition to see who's baby would be born first. My school had a baby shower for both couples on October seventh. Neither of the ladies looked too big at the shower but they were both 8 months pregnant in this picture.Carl and his wife had their baby on November fourth. But still Kim and I waited. I ended up taking time off of work on more than occasion for false alarms. You see Kim had contractions for at least six weeks before Erica was born. They are pretty mild at first and then they get more intense and uncomfortable as birth is getting closer. When Kim has gone into labor in the past they have really hurt her alot. But something about the anticipation of this baby and the frequency of the contractions made us think that Kim was going into labor when she wasn't yet.

On Tuesday night Kim was up most of the night with contractions. She was timing them and trying to figure out when she should wake me up to head to the hospital. I think she was hoping we could get our oldest two to school before we headed to the hospital. When I woke up she told me what was going on, and that she thought this was the the day. So I got a sub for school that day, and took the older two kids to school. When I got back, those contractions that were a steady five to six minutes apart started becoming 10 to 12 minutes apart and then sometimes as much as 20 minutes apart. That was really disheartening. I could tell that they were "real" contractions because they were bringing Kim to tears, but unless they were five minutes apart, we just had to wait at home. By noon we realized that I could have gone to school and that if anything were to happen that day it wasn't going to happen until evening.

Kim's mom had made the trip up to our house so she could be close just in case anything happened. So she suggested that I go with Kim to her doctor appointment, that had been scheduled for that day. So we went to the appointment at 4:00pm. They always do an ultrasound there, and they told us that the baby weighed less than eight pounds. They also told us that since she was overdue she should go into the hospital and get her contractions and the baby's heartbeat monitored, and they talked about scheduling a time to have labor induced.

So we headed to the hospital. They didn't have a room for monitoring so they put us in a labor and delivery room. As soon as we got there the contractions picked up. They were coming about five minutes apart. Before too long we realized that this was it. Kim wasn't going to be sent home, and the baby was finally going to come.

So we made arrangements over the phone for friends to have Tommy and Casey stay overnight with them. Our oldest Alina wanted to be their for the birth, so she stayed at our house with Nana until later. As Kim was having contractions I was trying to comfort her and figure out when the best time for Nana and Alina to come would be. Since this was our fourth child I thought she might come quickly. I asked the nurse when she thought it might come, but she wasn't much help. On top of everything it was a full moon that night and the Labor and Delivery section of the hospital filled up before we knew it, so we actually didn't see a nurse too often. Apparently what they say is true - more babies are born when there is a full moon.

Nana and I had decided to have Alina go to sleep and then we would wake her up when it was time to go. I made a guess, based on how things were going, and how things went two years ago when Casey was born, that Erica might come before midnight. So I suggested that Nana bring Alina around 10:30. I figured better too early than too late. As it turns out it was way too early.

When Alina got there the lady in the next room was screaming in pain. It sounded like she was delivering her baby. Alina was pretty scared, and when she saw her Mom in pain that didn't help. Around 11:15 they sent the three of us out of the room so that they could give Kim an epidural. When we came back. Kim was feeling better and Alina felt better as well.

We could tell that the epidural took the edge off of Kim's contractions. She was more alert and social between contractions. However as the night went on the pain started coming back. Before too long she seemed like she was in more pain than she was before. She was still feeling everything, even though the epidureologiest came back and upped the dosage. Kim was also very tired. Remember she didn't sleep much the night before. Alina was also getting very tired.
Sometime in the early morning Kim said she felt like pushing. So I went to find a nurse. After I told them, one of them came down to check Kim. After she did, she asked me "How big were your other babies?" When I told her they were all around 7 and 1/2 pounds, she said as she walked out of the room "The baby's head might be too big."

I was thinking she was going to call the Doctor, but later I realized she didn't because she said about an hour later "I think you're ready to deliver, I'm going to go call the Doctor." I really wondered what she did when she walked out of the room earlier. Did she have a card game to finish with the other nurses? And why would she make a comment like that and just leave the room?

Anyway the Doctor finally came. Kim did start to push, and she still had no working epidural.

-- Okay I need to make a little disclaimer before I relay this next part. No, I am not going to post any pictures of the actual birth if that is what you are thinking. It has to do with my perspective at this point. You see I had been through childbirth 3 times before this one and I still know very little about the whole pushing part. I am usually the last one to see the baby's head, and I still don't know what to say to Kim to "coach" her. But the following is what I put together from everything that I saw and heard.

It seemed as if Kim was pushing and then the baby would slip back. The nurses and the Doctor seemed pretty concerned. Was the head too big? I didn't know, but it seemed as if they were discussing the possibility of a C-section without saying it out loud. I don't think they wanted Kim to have that thought in her head . Plus since it was so busy, maybe they would have a hard time getting the epidureologist back. Maybe if it were not for the full moon Kim would have had a C-section.

The other thing that really stood out to me is Kim's attitude. She kept saying she was tired, and that she didn't think she could do it. But when the nurse said "yes you can!" Kim answered back with a respectful "okay." It wasn't like "okay - be quiet" it was like "okay you convinced me, I'll do my best." With all of the pain that Kim was going through, she still felt the need to answer the nurse that was talking to her. More than once during the night Kim asked me how I was doing too. She didn't want me to be burdened with the things she needed . To me the way she acted goes to show that consideration for others is deeply ingrained into her. That was one of the things that I liked about Kim when I asked her to marry me, but I would have thought that this was a time that she could think more of herself than others. But Kim is not like that. Alot of times intense situations show what a person is really like. This labor, which was the hardest that Kim has had since our first baby, showed me that Erica is a lucky girl to have Kim as her mom!

Well baby Erica did finally come out at 2:45 am. Alina who was waiting in the hallway during the delivery quickly came in to see her new sister. Before too long Alina was holding baby Erica in her arms.

Of course Mommy got to hold the baby too. She deserved it after all that hard work. This picture was actually taken the next day when both Kim and Erica were feeling a little better.

I was thrilled to hold our new bundle of joy as well.

It was wonderful that everything turned out alright. We were glad to finally meet little Erica, but Alina wanted to go to school the next day, so we needed to go home pretty soon. Nana had to drive all the way down they hill. So we said goodbye to Kim and Erica and headed out together around 4:00 am. Alina fell asleep on the way home. We were glad that Nana didn't. When I got home I arranged for a sub at school, sent out a couple emails, and posted my last blog entry, so that people would be able to see pictures. I got to bed about 5:30 am.

The next day I was awakened by Kim's sister Michelle. She was in Hawaii, and wondering what happened. It was about 9:00 am. I was sooo tired, but excited to tell someone about little Erica. Alina woke up pretty soon after that so I took her to school around 9:50, just in time for the Great Southern California Shake Out (an earthquake drill that many area schools took part in).

Later on that afternoon I took all three of my other kids to see Erica. Casey fell asleep, so the first picture with all four kids in it has both Erica and Casey sleeping.

Casey woke up before long and got to hold his little sister.

He is pretty protective of her already. Just in case anyone thinks about messing with her, he is ready!
I just had to work that picture into this blog somehow.

Tommy got to hold baby Erica for the first time too.
And then we got our first family picture with the six of us together.

In the end it was all worth the wait. Our beautiful baby Erica was born. And the 11 days so far after she was born have gone alot faster than the 11 days before her birth. Kim is feeling much better, and we are all at home now. I'll leave you with a few more pictures of Erica.

Erica CarolAnn

Future baseball fan Erica CarolAnn Efting was born today at 2:45 am. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 20 inches long. Here are a few pictures of the darling little girl.

Too much time on my hands

My wife and I are anxiously awaiting the birth of our fourth child. Kim's due date was yesterday, and although she keeps having contractions they have not been strong enough or close enough together to have us start heading into the hospital. So we just wait. Here is a picture of Kim and me at the pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago.

10 years ago I was down on one knee asking Kim to marry me. Now I am down on my knees comparing her belly to a pumpkin.
Any way since I seemed to have a little time on my hands and there is no more baseball to watch this season. I decided to take a picture of myself in each one of my hats and put it on this blog. Maybe this will scare away any casual readers. :)