DON'T take me out to the ballgame, please.

We have the last Miracle League baseball game tonight.  It hasn't gone as I'd hoped.

I hoped the boys would adjust to the routine and if not enjoy it, at least go through the motions of the baseball game willingly.  That hasn't happened.  Maybe because they just weren't ready for it, or maybe because we lacked consistency (we missed a couple of weeks due to schedule conflicts, and got rained out twice).  But the fact is, they cry and struggle and appear to hate every second they spend on the baseball diamond.

They took a team photo last Monday night, and AJ managed to stand still for it, but Zack fought us and buckled and fell to the ground, screaming.  I'm sure it'll be a terrific photo with him looking like he's being poked in the back with a hot coal, and AJ standing next to him, crying.  Good grief.  Everyone else stood there for the picture.  A few of their teammates looked at them in amazement.  It wasn't their finest moment.

I pulled them out of occupational therapy on Thursday evenings to play baseball, and now that it's over, I think they should have just stayed in OT.  They didn't get much out of baseball, from what I can see.

I guess there's a fine line between encouraging and forcing.  Maybe we encouraged too much and it crossed that line.  There's a lot we try to do "for their own good," but it's also for us, a little bit.  Because sometimes we just want to have little boys who do normal things, like play baseball.  And this seemed like a great opportunity - a league especially for kids with special needs, where expectations and pressure will be low and they can just learn to hit the ball and run around the bases, and have a good time.

If we could do it over again, I don't think we would.

Potty training is disappointing so far, too.  No progress whatsoever.  I am filling out the intake forms and getting us on the waiting list to receive autism day treatment from Frasier, a program in the Twin Cities.  The waiting list is probably 6 months long, but we need help, and I am pretty sure we'll still need help in 6 months.  Frasier does a lot of life skills training, and that's something we need.