Last year, Jenna played t-ball in California and it was an extremely positive experience for our whole family. Jenna loved it, Nate got to coach her team, I hung out with the other moms, and Abby got riduculously dirty playing in the dirt.
When we moved to New York, we knew t-ball would be in our future. We signed Jenna up, Nate gets to be the coach again, and Abby gets to be the "assistant coach." In CA, four year olds can play and she was looking forward to being on the team, but here in NY, she can't play until she's 5, so Nate made her the unofficial assistant coach. They even had a meeting last night to go through all the equipment and make sure everything was ready. She's taking her role very seriously:)
T-ball isn't going to be what we expected it to be. Jenna is the only girl on her team. Yes, the ONLY girl. Apparently, little girls don't play t-ball so much here and there are only 1-2 girls on each team, which is co-ed. When we signed her up, I asked about girls being on teams and only got the response of them only being co-ed. I was sure that there'd be at least a few girls on the team. But no, she's the only one.
At first, I was furious about this . . . more at myself for not getting all the information before we committed to this, but also for the fact that no one bothered to tell me that girls usually don't play t-ball in our community. I mean, we can't pull her out. Nate can't not coach. But I am just not sure how she's going to handle being the only girl on the team. She seems okay with it and only cares that her daddy is the coach.
But this is what I see in my head: All the players lined up ready to go--all the boys in their navy blue helmets and brown leather gloves. Jenna will be in her pink helmet holding her pink glove that also happens to light up:) Will they make fun of her or accept her? Will she be able to keep up with the boys? Will she be known as that girl who played on the boys t-ball team?
I am pretty much over my fears and anger now and think it will be good for her. She'll get to know some new people and play on the team that Nate coaches (which is a fun thing to watch), and she'll have to do something that might be uncomfortable at first, but will be beneficial in the end. Hopefully she'll show some of those boys up with her mad t-ball skills!
4 comments:
There's a good chance that no one will even notice that she's a girl. (Not that they won't notice that she's a girl, but that it won't make a bit of difference to any of the other kids out there. they just don't notice. until this year (or maybe last year, in 4th grade) most of Matt's friends were girls. Brianna's best friend in her class is a boy...kids just really don't care unless we make them care, until a certain age, i think in late elementary, from my experience. we went camping for spring break and Brianna was the only girl there (except for the moms) and she had a blast. the only difference was that she went in the bathroom with mom...come to think of it, some of the littler boys went into the bathroom with mom too, so that wasn't even that different. don't sweat it, Laura, just enjoy! (one day there will be a difference between the boys and the girls, and then you will have something to worry about :))
jenna will kick butt! when i was in 4th grade, i was the only girl in the entire soccer league. our team was known as 'the one with the girl.' but not because i was less of a player than the boys...because i played just as rough (if not rougher) than the boys. i found out years later that i apparently used to embarrass my mom because of how brutal i was during the games :) hopefully jenna won't embarrass you, but i bet she'll have a blast!
I don't know why this made me laugh but it did. Laugh out loud kind of laugh. I can just picture Jenna in her pink helmet in the long line of blue and I love it. I agree with Susan in that most of the kids will not see the gender difference.
I read this a while ago and meant to comment but I didn't. This took me way back to 4th-6th grade when I played MelOtt at St Peter's. It was the hardball league for 3-8th grade. I was one of few girls but I loved it. You know I was a tomboy, but I never really got razzed too bad about being a girl. It was just fun, and the mom's of all the boys loved having me around. haha. I still remember the homerun I hit to win the game in 5th grade. Great memories :) Jenna will have a blast. She'll use that pink helmet to show how special she is!
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