Indoor Baseball

Do you have rooms in your house that aren’t used? I do. My formal living room is one of those rooms. It has a dormered ceiling that’s 12 feet high. It’s a complete waste of space and insures the room stays ice-box cold all winter long. But, the high ceiling makes the room look very impressive. The room would probably look more impressive if it had furniture in it. Needless to say, we barely use it.

Boy uses it more than anyone. He’s turned it into his indoor basketball court. He goes into the room and throws the ball at the wall for hours. Yes, hours. Of course, Tiny who wants to be as good as her big brother at everything, occasionally uses the room too.

The other day, while making dinner, I heard Tiny bouncing the ball all over the room. Eventually, she called Boy into the room. Because he’s nice, he went. Shortly thereafter, Boy returned, rolling his eyes. Then Tiny called Girl into the room and soon she returned rolling her eyes. Finally, Tiny called Wife into the room. By the time Wife returned, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What is going on in there?” I asked.

Wife explained that Tiny was practicing throwing and she was throwing the ball over everyone’s head. As Wife finished explaining, I got the call.

I went to the living room and asked, “What’s going on, Little Girl?”

Tiny explained, “I can throw the ball super high! I threw the ball over Boy. I threw the ball over Girl. I threw the ball over Wife. You’re the biggest so now I have to throw the ball over you!”

This may come as a surprise but I tend to be slightly silly at home. So when Tiny told me to stand there, I extended both my arms as high about my head as I could. “No Daddy! Arms down.” Tiny said.

Then we went through a couple of iterations of what arms down meant. I put my elbows in the air. I put my wrists in the air. I put animals in my hands at my shoulders. It took a while for us to agree what to agree what ‘down’ meant. But, finally, I put my arms down. Tiny leaned back to throw, and just before she launched the ball, I jumped into the air as high as I could. “No Daddy! No jumping either.”

I could tell Tiny was getting frustrated so I stopped and just stood there. So, Tiny leaned back to throw the ball and suddenly I saw a little gleam in her eye. She leaned back a little farther than usual and threw the ball as hard… and as straight as she could.
Let me tell ya, that child is going to be quite a pitcher some day.