Athletic Support

Bart must decide between soccer and baseball this spring. He's six, and it seems like you should be able to learn both, but no, soccer takes three days a week and baseball two--both on the same two weekdays, too. But not at the same time! Ooh, we could do both!

No.

I like soccer, because it's after school, as opposed to at dinner, and there's running around. Poptart likes baseball on the grounds that it's harder to learn and more important to learn young. (Not that you see him out there tossing the ball around with Bart, because a) he does not have time and b) there is too much critique involved and Bart does not enjoy it and therefore does not want to do it after the first ten minutes.)

I don't really care, although I do resent the idea that sports take place at dinner time at six. I mean, older, I know this is going to happen, but SIX? How are we going to protest that if we participate, and does he have any idea what it's going to be like sitting there at dinnertime with Gert and Beau and waiting for baseball to end? Oh, I'll pick him up, Poptart says, and I say yeah, right, and then we fight. But he probably will, mostly some of the time anyway, and I could go home and not stay and watch, thus probably scarring Bart for life because of my lack of interest. Poptart will show up for the last ten minutes and then tell Bart everything he did wrong. (Sports are going to be an issue for our family, it's just the way it's going to be. Probably the worst one we've got. There's the way any given child does it, and there's perfect: i.e. the way the child should do it. Wild, natural enthusiasm and immediate talent are all that will be acceptable. Poptart claims all men are like this and that being told what you are doing wrong is the only way to learn.)

OK, so the real point--I told Bart to talk to his father about which sport to play. The deadline for baseball is Thursday. Every time I bring it up to Poptart he bites my head off. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to talk about it.
Well, they've got one more night with baseball as a possibility. I want to not bring it up again to punish Poptart for being a jerk about it (Even though we're on day six of the parents Granola and I should probably concede that that makes him testy, in fact it was making me testy tonight, about which more later, but they leave tomorrow). But that would punish Bart too.

Of all things to be a nag about...baseball and soccer. As far as I'm concerned he could take the spring off and just play in the yard.


Grrrr.