I like being a mom

My kids just couldn't stand it. They had to give me my Mother's Day presents as soon as we got home from baseball tonight. So I have a homemade clay pot painted sparkly blue and gold and white, some wonderful smelling bath salts, a little gardening purse, some candies, a picture, and a song written just for me. With all that love and a cold beer after an exciting (excruciatingly exciting) night of little league baseball, I couldn't be more content. Well, perhaps I'd be more content if my DH wasn't in South Dakota again. That'd be nice.

Good heavens - that baseball game. Q's team is tied for 2nd in the league, and the team they played tonight is in last place. I thought this was going to be an easy one. They were tied 4-4 for most of the game. Top of the last inning (they play 5), Q's team (Mets) scored no runs. Other team (Cubs) had 2 men on base, 2 outs, guy up to bat had 2 strikes and 3 balls. Gah. We struck him out.
They went into extra innings.
Q's team scored a run. 2 men got on base. Then this kid Landis actually HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK!!!! (I haven't seen that before in this league). So cute - the Mets all ran out to home plate and screamed and yelled and celebrated with him. So it was 8-4.
Then the Cubs come up to bat. Scored a run. Got two men on base. 2 outs. Hit a huge pop fly out into right field. Way out there. Guess who is playing right field? In slow motion, I saw my little boy running back for the ball, glove outstretched, nice form. It would have been a spectacular catch. But, it tipped off his glove and hit the fence. I thought I was going to throw up for him. He slipped while throwing it in and misthrew. They scored two runs. Next guy up to bat got to 2 strikes, 3 balls. I hid in the van and was afraid to watch. Struck him out. Final score was 8-7. THANK GOD. Who knew I'd be having heart palpitations over a little league game.
Q was in tears and I wisely stayed away and let his coaches work it out with him. When he finally came out of the dugout I got all excited and started chattering on about his two good hits (he hit in two runs earlier in the game). He finally came around but holy moly that child is so hard on himself. He gets straight A's, was selected for Gifted and Talented (about 8 kids out of 120 in his grade), he's a fabulous piano player, 1st chair clarinet in band, a decent ball player, and he thinks he is a complete failure. I don't know how to help him enjoy himself. :-(

So - global warming and the evil scientist discussion again. I ran into a co-worker in the lady's bathroom today and she was telling me how horrified she was at a recent DC meeting to run into a policy maker type who was convinced global warming was a total hoax. Flabergasted, she asked him, "Really? Even now as it's pretty much an international scientific consensus, especially given the recent IPCC reports?!" I told her that well of course people are skeptical because we scientists are making so much money off of global warming. We spent the next few minutes rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter then returned to our computers to read about the next round of cuts in earth science funding by the government and prepare for the next going away party for the most recent co-worker of ours who is fleeing this line of science because of the research cuts. In my building, they just put up a picture display showing all of us that work in the building. I was looking it over with my lunch gang and B, after several minutes of looking at it, said "this is a bunch of old people." Sure enough, *I* am one of the youngest ones up there. That's what happens when there's no money to hire anyone.

So (snort) Forgive me, oh skeptic ones, for getting a hearty and quite bitter laugh off of your mistaken impressions...

It's all ok though. Because I have the most beautiful Mother's day presents ever. (and the bath salts are mine, mine, mine despite the fact that darling daughter keeps taking them back for herself - bah)