Bugs, Bullies, and Baseball

It's Friday evening, so time to reflect on the past week:

A Bug's Life...no more: The wasps are finally out of the attic. Jim doused them with wasp spray a couple days ago. Not sure if there were live wasps in the hives or dead ones from last season, but once Jim sprayed, they were all over the outside. Ewww! Sans wetsuit, Jim went in the attic and removed the hives this afternoon. I was going to take pictures, hoping the hives could be removed whole, but all Jim brought down was some shredded paper with combs. Ha! At least they are gone. It was kind of creeping me out, knowing that those enormous things were up there!

Playground Bullies: A couple weeks ago, Connor started complaining of tummy aches when I would wake him up for school. He would tell me that he felt sick and couldn't go to school. He even said that his teachers told him to stay home if he wasn't feeling well.

We really didn't think much of it until Connor told us this past week that there are a couple kids at school who aren't being nice to him. One boy even told Connor that he isn't smart. :(

Connor has never complained about school and has always been excited to go. I mentioned what was going on to another mom at school. She called and said that her son told her that these two boys had been teasing Connor on the playground, reaffirming what Connor had been telling us.

Connor didn't want to go to school again this morning, but we reassured him that we would be talking to his teachers. It's not something we wanted to make a big issue out of, but definitely something that they needed to be aware of. I told them that Connor is a pretty tough kid, so to have a change in attitude about going to school, something has been clearly bothering him. Fortunately, no teasing happend today at school, but at least Connor's teachers are now aware of the situation in case it happens again.

Baseball Politics (my biggest gripe of the week): As I mentioned in an earlier post, we found out that Tyler had been selected on the baseball team, RoughRiders. There is so much behind this story, but bascially, several of the parents from last year had hoped Jim would manage a team this year. For whatever reason (politics, not enough players, too many applicants, ???), Jim was not picked by the league to manage.

In the meantime, another dad, who was not a manager or coach last year, but his son was on Tyler's team, was given a team to manage. Nothing against this dad, but I don't think the league should have picked someone just because they know him over someone who managed a team last year, but that's Little League politics for you! Furthermore, this dad teamed up with one of the coaches on our team from last year, so we pretty much knew how this was all going to turn out.

The boys had tryouts, there was a draft, and Tyler was put on a team with a manager we don't know. There were about six players on last year's team that were hoping to stay together, but suddenly Tyler is now on a different team. Personally, I don't even think they tried to get Tyler. What irritates me most about it is not so much the manager, but the coach who helped Jim out last year. Unless Tyler was chosen early in the draft, I feel this guy didn't give Jim or Tyler the respect they deserved.

This evening was the Meet the Managers Event. We met Tyler's new manager. He seemed nice enough...maybe a little hardcore to be managing six and seven year olds, but I am not going to judge until I see him with the players.

When we were done talking to Tyler's manager, I took the boys around the room so we could scope out the other teams. Jim was at work, so was not able to go with us. Lo and behold, four kids (that I noticed) from our old team were part of this new team with the coach that Jim picked last year. Not cool!

Like I said, Tyler could have been chosen early in the draft, however, part of me really feels like Tyler and Jim have been snubbed throughout this entire process.
To add salt to my wounds, the coach saw Tyler and headed right over to him. He said, "Hi, Tyler! How are you?" and shook his hand. He barely acknowledged me! What the heck? Jim and I were nothing but nice to these people, and up until a couple months ago, they were all gung ho about staying together as a team. I might be reading too much into this, but I felt like that hand shake was a slap in the face.

This would have been the perfect opportunity for him to say something to me, and believe me, it took everything in me to hold back. If he had told us that they really wanted Tyler and Jim (as a coach), but Tyler was picked by another team early in the draft, I would have been totally understanding. Even Tyler noticed that he barely would look at me, so really, why come over?

If this situation had been reversed and Jim was a manager or coach, he would have tried his best to keep the team and coaches together. I feel like this guy really dropped the ball, whether deliberately or not.

Jim doesn't seem to care! I get myself worked up, especially when I am feeling protective of my family. I had heard baseball is political, but it's amazing how early it starts. Jim is now relieved that we aren't all together. He doesn't like cliques. Who knows, maybe it will all work out for the best, but believe me, on game day, we are going to kick their butts! ;)