Category: Kids & Cute Stories

Now pitching to your little one, Nolan Ryan

NewMexiKen posted this five years ago today, but it seems timely in light of the new season.

From Science Daily, Slow Balls Take The Swing Out Of Young Ball Players:

Exasperated parents practicing throw-and-connect skills with their young children will be relieved to know that their child’s inability to hit a slow-moving ball has a scientific explanation: Children cannot hit slow balls because their brains are not wired to handle slow motion.

“When you throw something slowly to a child, you think you’re doing them a favour by trying to be helpful,” said Terri Lewis, professor of psychology at McMaster University. “Slow balls actually appear stationary to a child.”

This explains why a young child holding a bat or a catcher’s mitt will often not react to a ball thrown toward her, prompting flummoxed parents to continue throwing the ball even slower. By adding a little speed to the pitch, Lewis and her team found that children were able to judge speed more accurately. There are several reasons for the phenomenon.

Still one of my favorite Sweetie photos ever

First posted here two years ago.

Buy kids all the video games and Disney princess paraphernalia in the world — or let them drop stones down a storm drain grate at the soccer field. Which to you think they’ll choose?

Five of The Sweeties® demonstrate. Click image for larger version.

Five Sweeties

Redux post of the day

First posted here six years ago today.

Look out, Barry!

Three-year-old Mack informs everyone (through his mommy) that he was one of only two kids to hit a home run* during his at bat at tee ball class today. Yay Mack!

*”Home runs” are conditional in many ways. Some, but not all, of the factors that contribute to a tee ball home run include:

1) How well the child hits the ball off the tee.

2) The speed with which the instructor reaches the child and redirects him towards first base after the child goes tearing indiscriminately towards left field.

3) How many of the children playing in the field are actually paying attention to the at bat, rather than standing at the bleachers asking their mommies for goldfish crackers.

4) The “coming within ten to twelve feet of second base is close enough” clause.

5) Which child fields the ball. It’s usually Zachary or Carson (“The Big Kids”), and no way are you getting a home run. But if your ball accidentally trickles right up to the feet of Noah (“The Kid Who Won’t Participate Without His Mommy”) you stand a chance.

There may be hope yet

Jill has yet another new post at Dinner without Crayons. She begins:

Sometimes I worry about my kids’ taste in music. I’ve introduced them to all the classics – and by classics I don’t mean Tchaikovsky but rather The Beatles, Elvis, Fleetwood Mac, Motown.

But despite my attempts to steer them towards quality tunes, they have an unrelenting tendency to embrace the trashiest current music they can find.

The most important dessert of the day

At Dinner without Crayons, Jill writes about breakfast dessert and other assorted adventures with the Gruesome Threesome. A brief excerpt:

The children, smelling my vulnerability like a dog smells fear, will then gleefully band together to try to break me. I think they must theorize that if they put me into a mental hospital, and their daddy is still off “working,” they will have free reign over the house and can skip school and watch Cartoon Network and rated R movies all day.

Reid

Sweetie Reid is 4 today.

Reid is his great grandfather’s middle name — and his great great grandfather’s given name.

Reid’s middle name is Fisher, which is my middle name — and my dad’s middle name and my granddad’s middle name.

So then, both Reid and Fisher are fifth generation names.

Reidie got all the family heirlooms.

Release me, let me go



No Kiley hasn’t been released from jail and forced to wear an ankle bracelet. She’s just ready to run a mile.

And she did, finishing fifth among 32 women ages 7-8. Aidan finished third among boys ages 6 and under. Mack was third among boys ages 9-10 and sixth overall out of 120 male runners through age 13. Mack ran the mile in 6:58, great for his first race of the season.

Redux post of the day

First published here four years ago today.

Mack, official oldest grandchild of NewMexiKen, was nervous. According to his mother, it was “pajama day” at Little Lambs pre-school. That meant that all the five-year-olds were supposed to wear a favorite pair of pajamas to school. In his pajamas in the car on the way however, it felt a little uncertain.

To alleviate the uncertainty — which by then had started to settle into her own mind — his mom began to suggest other “clothing days” there might be. In the joking that followed, Mack suggested — as 5-year-old boys will — “underpants day.”

His mother assured him there would be no day when the kids just wore underpants to class — at least not until college.