Our little nonconformist

Last week in the car on the way home from preschool, Lael announced, "You should have named me Hermione." I used to have a twinge of guilt that people have had such a hard time pronouncing her name and I constantly have to repeat it, but at this point, I realize we do not have an average child on our hands and she definitely needed an unusual name, so Lael fits and I am very glad we chose it for her. (For those of you who don't know, it's Hebrew and literally means "of God" - "la" is "of" and "El" means "God," as in Elohim.) Anyway, I just bought towels for my bathroom - I figure after being married 10 years, it's time to have a put-together, matching bathroom. I chose Restoration Hardware towels and bought them on sale and with a coupon and they were still outrageously expensive but they were available in a range of aquas, so now we each have our own coordinating, monogrammed towel in a different color. This has cut down on laundry significantly because now when a towel is on the ground, I know who's it is and I only end up washing them once a week. Erik and I have the same initials, so I ordered Erik one white towel so he couldn't forget which one was his because it really stands out and has his initials. Well, Lael's initals are LDS, which is kinda cute. The only problem is that when you do the traditional form of monogramming with the last name as the big letter and the initials of the other names on either side, it turns her initials into LSD. All I can say is: I didn't see that one coming and having Lael has been a trip.

Take T-ball for instance. Saturday was Opening Day, complete with a pancake breakfast, a parade and ballgames. Our little nonconformist did not want to wear her uniform. Lael thought she would be able to play in whatever shirt she wanted. We finally convinced her she would have to wear her team T-shirt with her No. 5 on the back, and then the coach said she would have to wear her hair in a ponytail because "it says so in the rules." I'm not so sure this is true. Although it was a battle, Lael finally let me do it. But her hair was so short (since she and her friend Ryan cut it a few weeks ago) that most of it fell out of the ponytail by the end of the games anyway. I am going to have to choose whether to fight the coach or my daughter and I'm interested in what the actual rules are but I think her hair is short enough that it is not a reasonable request. I'll keep you posted. There are five T-ball teams in the league this year and they wanted everyone to play on Opening Day, so it was a double header for her. Everyone on her team needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the second game, so we ended up having a 10-minute potty break between innings. Then Lael made the classic T-ball play of throwing the ball home and beaning the runner in the back of the helmet. Another little girl ran all the way to first base with her bat while everyone yelled at her, "Drop the bat!" There are always plenty of moments worth watching in a T-ball game.

Both Oliver and Lael were playing at the same time. It was a little tough to watch both games at once but we could stand between the fields because they are close together and turn back and forth, and I'd rather have that than be there ALL the time (they each have two games and a practice a week). Oliver had a double play (two runners scored off one of his hits) in his game. It lasted more than two hours and the final score was 15-15. We went to the sporting goods store between events to complete the kids' uniforms and that night we went to a birthday party at Pump It Up and had Book Club, so Saturday was a full, crazy day. Thankfully, not every day is this crazy, but by the end of dealing with unreasonable kids, random disagreeable members of the community and a crazy schedule like this, it's a wonder I don't have a migraine every day and am sane at all! Here's hoping for a nice, calm birthday week for me.