April 20, 2006 - Thursday
Harry had his first T-Ball practice this evening with the Raptors, his team for this season.(named after the Odgen Raptors in the Pacific Coast League). This year all the T-Ball teams are named after minor league teams, presumably because they have cooler-looking logos, for kids anyway, than teams like last year's Giants, Tigers, Rangers, and Red Sox. We got the shirts after practice, Harry is #9, and the Raptors shirts have a dinosaur on the front. It couldn't get any better than that for Harry.

Tonight wasn't actually Harry's first T-Ball practice this year. He was originally put on the (Sacramento) River Cats, which also have a nice logo, and went to their first practice last weekend. But the River Cats regular practice will be on Thursday evenings and that would have conflicted with his drum lesson, so I asked the Raptors coach about switching. We could have done it on Thursdays, but it would have meant dinner in the car on the way from his drum lesson (no drum lesson tonight because of school vacation week). The Raptors' regular Monday evening practice will certainly work better. Truth be told, that's not the only reason why I asked about the Raptors. Harry knows several kids on the Raptors, including his new next door neighbor, Ian, and Bryan, from Jeremy birthday party and the Moppet School. Harry didn't know any on the River Cats. It actually took about two weeks to confirm the switch (there seems to be a lot of disorganization this year), but I talked to the coach, Bryan's father, yesterday morning and he said that it was probably going to work out. I got the formal confirmation this morning.

Last night at bedtime when we talked about practice coming up this evening, Harry said he wanted to be on the Raptors and not the River Cats and I can certainly understand why. People, kids especially but adults too, want to be comfortable and that usually means being with people they know. Still, I pointed out to Harry that he hadn't known Chad or Hadley before he started kindergarten and that worked out well, or Ben before last year's Giant's team. It's easier when you know kids, but when you don't it's an opportunity to make new friends, I said. Didn't you make a new friend at the River Cats practice? He'd talked about a "Jack." Then I conceded that both the River Cats and the Raptors were having a practice tonight and that we'd find out tomorrow about switching, but that I'd talked to Bryan's dad and he thought it would work out with the Raptors.


Comments, Opinions?