The power of baseball

As most of you know, I can equate any situation in life to either:

A.) Baseball

or

B.) Hunting

Rocking gives you many hours to sit and think, which for me is probably a bad thing because I have a bit of a weird mind. Raising a newborn child though is somewhat like baseball. Here me out on this.

Back several years ago, when my knees didn't creak and my arm could still throw a baseball through something thicker than a wet paper towel, I was an ok catcher. Not a great one but a pretty good one. But I learned that in order for me to be successful as a catcher and stick in college or whatever that I'd have to be able to catch a good game because my .193 batting average wasn't going to keep me in the lineup.

I learned what pitches worked at what times and how to work them to my advantage,
the fastball on the outside corner that a hitter deposits over the right field fence, might be a pitch he swings and misses at in another at bat. It was just a matter of when you threw it. The same applies to lil Ashtyn.

Our living room looks like a garage sale waiting to happen right now with things we've tried at different points to get her to sleep and be calm - swings, car seats, bouncy chairs that vibrate. All of them work, it just depends on the order that you do them in. The swing is perfect when she's just in that mood where "I'm not quite asleep, but I could be if you gave me a reason to", any other time it's an annoyance and she lets you know. The bouncy chair that vibrates won't put her to sleep, but it will make her happy and content for and hour sometimes if you promise to bounce her while doing it.

Daddy's bouncy knee is the cure all when you need it. It's the baseball equivalent of the nasty slider - she's looking fastball down the middle and then here comes the bouncy knee (with or without the back pat) and the next thing you know she's content and ready to stare at you for 10 minutes like nothing was ever wrong.

Now all of these serve their purpose to entertain her, cuz seriously, when you can't walk, talk, or do more than roll 8 inches you're a bit dependant on others to take care of that for you. When it's late innings tho - say 11:00 and mommy and daddy are tired........ thats when we make the call to the bullpen. I call it the "Joe Nathan". It's the 9th inning hammer guaranteed to put little one out for a few hours.

She likes to eat around 9:00ish and then tries to stay awake as long as she can. Obviously she can't eat the whole time shes awake but if we get her about 3 ounces at feeding time, mix in some bouncy chair, maybe some bouncy knee and then turn the lights down - add a 1/2 ounce of milk and 1 ounce of mommy time an hour later and she's out like a light. It sounds like a bar shot, but it puts her to sleep like nobodies business....... The Joe Nathan.

I've also been meaning to mention a new friend of Ashtyn's in the blog, but since they had their own blog and I didn't want copywrite infingements to be levied against me I haven't brought him up. Colby Thompson was supposed to be born about a month after Ashtyn, but came about 80 days ago. There were some touchy moments and he spent some time in Fairview Hospital in Minneapolis, but we're happy to report that he came home yesterday! Yay for friends to play with when we go to Sherwood. Congrats to Steve, Heather and Colby!

More to come on Colby in future blogs.

As I write the end of this post, it's kind of prophetic. Joe Nathan of the Minnesota Twins is closing out a win vs. the Indians and "Joe Nathan" the sleepy time shot has just put Ashtyn to bed. Now we just gotta make sure neither of them starts blowing saves.