Softball WIns and Ice Cream

I'm not sure who likes ice cream more, the moms or the kids! I have to admit, I have a terrible weakness for ice cream, especially if chocolate and/or coffee flavors are involved. My friend and faithful reader Maria headed up the celebration by treating everyone, me included, to ice cream after our (wining ) game. Here, I can be seen stuffing my face with chocolate moose tracks (by the way, my C key is back working...) capped off with cappuccino crunch. Yummy. I think Maria had some kind of almond concoction.

Anyway, I have an ice cream digression. Years ago we lived in Vermont not far from a Ben and Jerry's factory store. Now that was dangerous! A pint could be had for 98 cents because there was just a little too much air whipped in. My favorite was a fudge brownie sundae with white Russian ice cream. Unfortunately they don't make that flavor anymore. And have I mentioned that I have a problem with a half cup as a serving size? I always thought the pint container was one serving. Too bad we didn't have money to buy Ben and Jerry's stock when it first went public and we lived there...Of course that didn't impress our twenty something sons (Matt in particular) who can't believe that we lived so close to Stowe and weren't on the mountain all the time, and that the band Phish made their debut right around the year of his birth in Burlington coffee shops. I patiently explained that during those years his dad was in medical school and we were living on less than a shoestring (seems to me there was a problem with the price of oil then, too, which prompted us to keep our thermostat set at 60 degrees) and besides, I was either pregnant or nursing a baby much of that time, and a prego swooshing down the slopes wasn't an option.

Back to softball.

I was having some more deja vu tonight. Most of it involves Nicole, but tonight it was softball.

Years ago we played at the same field with Matt. Tonight we played the same team the girls had played last week and lost to, Berwick. It was quite a game...

The winning pitcher, Blair, (her mom Joyce was pictured with Tianna a couple of days ago) is pictured above with Tianna.

But back to the deja vu thing...I used to get really worked up watching these games as if they were more than games. Sure it is great to win, but it doesn't always work out that way. I remember one game Matt played in his Senior Year in HS. It was the semi final game of the PIAA Championships. They were ahead, and they ended up losing. Parents were bawling left,right and center. So was I, but I was crying for a different reason. I was crying because he had had the chance to play and I had been granted the opportunity to watch. You see, he hadn't been home the beginning of his senior year; he was at therapeutic wilderness aftercare program. Marijuana had seduced him and he had been away, and even though his team mates he had won a state championship with as a nine year old were going to play ball together their senior year, I didn't think I was ever going to get to see him play ball again. And when I did, it didn't matter if they won or lost.

But I have to admit, I did want these girls to win. So it is great to see another Pride child wear an all star jersey.

I think Berwick really expected to win. But our girls had confidence from their win on Wednesday...and they played with their heads up. I have to say, I was disappointed in a couple of the tactics employed by the Berwick coaches. Come on, these people are adults and supposed to be leaders and role models. It seems to me that they modeled intimidation and confidence shaking. First there was a discussion about the fact that the pitcher had to have both feet on the rubber (no, that is ASA, not Little League, but there was enough uncertainty about it that it was a bit rattling to our pitcher). Then, when our starting pitcher was trying to overcome that, and threw a string of walks, the third base coach clearly and loudly announced the count to the batter. "That was eight...that was nine..." Come on. It got a couple of our parents wanting to count back at him when she threw strikes, but I gently pointed out that was stooping to their level. Apparently after their victory the other night, they also smeared some of our car windows that had been decorated with our girl's names. Is this eye for eye behavior? I like the grace version better...

So after two innings we were down 4-3. Got through the next two innings leaving them with the bases loaded and no further scoring, and then in the fifth our girls exploded and scored seven runs. Berwick simply fell apart. Thank God we didn't have a third base coach issuing running commentary...and the most beautiful thing I heard was the coach reminding the girls to be humble in victory. Don't take it for granted...they played a good game...but it could have gone the other way.

The girls will play again Friday against a powerhouse team. They are definitely the underdogs, but they have a healthy determination...and desire to go eat more ice cream!

And Maria, thanks again for the ice cream; it was delicious!