Anyone who's known me for any amount of time knows that I am a massive sports fan. When I was younger, I would go to my skating lessons, and set my stereo to record the Royals games, and play them back when I got home! Anybody who would divulge the score to me was victim of a dressing down like nobody has ever seen. I love baseball (I bleed Kansas City Royal blue), I followed the Major Indoor Soccer League (Go Comets!), I cheered every pro football game (GO CHIEFS!), and the best thing to come out of our adventure in Dallas was a LOVE LOVE LOVE for the Dallas Mavericks!  My Grandma is rolling in her grave...she was a huge Kansas City Kings fan!

When I learned I was having a daughter, I dreamt of doing her nursery in a pink baseball motif. My mother talked me out of it. I still wish I had done it.  When I had boys, they both had baseball themes in their rooms, and sports themed birthday parties. Even now, the majority of their parties consist of sports.

I am so lucky that my kids like playing sports. Emily is in dance, cheer, and softball. Matthew plays kid pitch baseball and is an amazing and natural goalie in soccer, and he just started taking hip hop lessons. Mikey is a great tee ball player, and has a lot of fun playing softball.  I have bench butt, and I am PROUD OF IT!

Tonight was Emily's softball game. Now, when we lived in Texas, she played non-competitive softball. That was slow pitch. Her favorite position was catcher.  She was really good!  But when we moved back to Missouri, non competitive was fast pitch, and since she hadn't played behind the plate for fast pitch before, her coach last year was hesitant to give her a chance. Thankfully this year, her coach found that Emily is REALLY GOOD behind the plate, and that's where she has been for the last 3 games. She seems to improve each game. Tonight, she ALMOST got the runner out at home plate!

She's really getting good. And even better, she's come to love the game I love so much.

So with a Mama's pride, here's a picture of my little girl playing catcher. Please join me in my celebration of my bench butt!  I'm proud of it!  Oh, and if you catch sight of the scoreboard in the background, it's HER team that's up 1-0!