Spring sports

The Wilson house has been crazy about sports this spring! Scott and I both believe that it is good to allow the children to pursue their sports interests to the extent that we can manage their schedules as a family. However, the kids' schedules have been a little intense with the overlapping of multiple sports at a time. Amelia is playing spring volleyball while John has taken up three different interests - soccer, flag football, and club baseball. We have had a lot of fun - and have been very busy - with all of the practices and games, for sure.

Ladies first...Amelia's volleyball. Amelia is # 11 on her volleyball team, the team that was undefeated last fall and (so far) has remained dominant this spring. The girls are completely proud of this fact! It has taken awhile for Amelia to catch on the this sport (this is her first team sport as her only sports interest has been in taking ballet lessons so far), but her serving has improved andAmelia seems to have grown increasingly interested in being a part of the team in the last few weeks. Below Amelia is in the front in the middle, looking back to watch her friend Bailey serve the ball.Now we move to John, the triple-sport man this spring. John first participated in spring soccer, which is a 6-week program run through our YMCA. John likes soccer and it comes pretty easily to him because he is aggressive and likes to run fast.Of course he is not running in the photos above, but you can imagine that he is because he did a lot of that this season.

The second sport John started was flag football, a sport he grew to really enjoy. I think that John engages quickly in the sports that he can run quickly and where he can partipate in offensive plays that move the team forward. This is where the kid seems to thrive.

The third sport that John picked up is baseball. Specifically this is machine-pitch, competitive league chamber baseball. Lucky for us, the coach John loved from his winter basketball league is a chamber baseball coach and he invited John to join his son's team this spring. To be honest, the machine-pitch baseball was rough at first. John hadn't been exposed to this before so he had a hard time adjusting to the rapid speed of the ball coming towards home plate. It was a far cry from last spring's t-ball.

However, John has gotten much stronger this season and you can tell he is more confident when at bat. In the last three games John has earned a base run every time he has been at bat, with one triple and a single every other time he was at home plate. To say that we are proud of his progress is an understatement.

The one thing John did NOT enjoy was being the catcher (photo below). Coach seems to be playing John quite a bit lately at third base, which I would say is a good fit for John. Just enough action for active involvement in the game without the physical pressure on playing catcher or pitcher.

Do I have a cute Yankee or what?