First Game of Catch (almost)

First Game of Catch (almost): Just before Easter, Aldi had little kid baseball gloves on sale for cheap.  So we bought one to put in the boy's basket.  Being three and an American, it seemed past time he had one.  On Easter morning, after we described the point of the large black and brown thing taking up valuable candy space he replied, "I don't want it" and refused to even try it on.  Several weeks and a new baby brother later, I decided it was time to retry introduction of America's past-time.  Earlier in the day, while we were wasting time channel flipping I turned over to a sports channel that was showing a college baseball game.  The Bear was interested enough to watch most of an inning and I was careful to point out how everyone except the batter was wearing baseball gloves.  That evening when he started getting restless, I suggested that we go outside and play with his ball and glove.  I had retrieved my glove from it's storage place* a few days earlier and the ball and his glove were sitting nestled in mine near the back door.  He suggested we include his over sized plastic baseball bat and the batting tee he'd gotten for his birthday.  Having added those items we were off into the back yard.  Once outside, I set up the tee, but having seen real athletes on TV playing without a tee, he was no longer interested in using one either.  He suggested I set it on the patio and he told me I could leave his glove over there too as he didn't want it.  Hoping that watching me using mine would inspire him to don his, I agreed and we got ready to play.  I showed him how to stand and swing the bat and I backed away a few steps to attempt to toss the ball in such a way that contact of some sort could be made.  "You swing the bat and hit the ball and I'll catch the ball in my glove" I told him.  "But Daddy," he replied, "who's going to fall down?"  Befuddled I asked for clarification.  "Somebody always falls down" he told me.  I eventually realized that what he'd taken away most from watching baseball on TV, was that it involved a lot of falling down** and getting really dirty.  So for the next several minutes, I tossed the ball near him.  He swung the bat and never once made contact, but after each swing he would drop the bat, run a few steps in a random direction and gleefully fall onto the ground.  His glove spent the entire time lying on the ground.

First Game of Catch (almost): A+

* - The trunk of my car, naturally.
** - a.k.a. - sliding