Softball season is over

Noah walked up to me and stood on top of the bucket to show me... his little card with a drawing of a mitt and a ball.

He pointed and sait "Mama." Because Mama uses a mitt just like that to catch the ball at her softball games that we attended all summer long. Noah loved to watch his mama and her friends chase the ball, swing the bat and run around the bases! Last year, he could barely hold onto the big softball; this year, it's all we can do to keep him from running out on the field.

And then he said "mitt," and "ball."

And then he threw the card a Papa and wandered off to bang on something in the other room.

Where I find him at the front picture window. Sheida sitting at her usual spot, on the left, in the dark, monitoring the front yard through the window for other dogs or people or moose or Donna. And Noah standing at his spot, on the right, looking around the shadowy trees and lawn and driveway but mostly waiting for his mama. "Ma ma," quietly, then back to Papa to dance and play tamborine.