It’s been a big week on many levels. We started our week with a little bit of snow from a western based storm. That led to a really fun night of sledding. The boy learned that it takes a lot of effort to groove a nice path. Once we had it, the goal was to make it from the back all the way to the pool. When daddy entered the picture, we almost made it. Just one little problem, daddy kind of missed the sled on one of his bigger attempts. One face plant later and well, sledding came to an abrupt end. We failed on our bid to make it to the pool, but came darn close.
The next day brought a Noreaster and lots of snow. It was a wet, heavy slow which made for good packing. The boy spent his afternoon building a fort. As pictured, every good fort needs a throne. I think he spent more time sitting on that throne than actually building his fort.
At one point, the boy offered up that we should build a snowman and he helped for a bit. However, when I turned to ask for help rolling the heavy bottom, the boy was no where to be seen. But alas, mommy pushed on. Yes, our snowman is missing eyes and in this picture arms, but I think overall he looks pretty good.
Zachary finally was given a chance to have Tom House look at his pitching video. While he was a bit nervous, he didn’t show it and a big smile came on his face when Tom said “Boring”. It’s been a long road to this point. Last summer, he wanted to quit pitching, but we convinced him let’s put in some work over winter and see where we land. By sure luck, we saw the Beta invite for Mustard. The app itself is a game changer for kids like Zachary. More importantly, it’s been extremely valuable to listen to Dr. House teach. Last week, we learned of the leg thrust and power angle. Zachary spent all week working on it, and trust me, there were some tough moments in there. One of the first things Dr. House said was look how quickly he gets his upper torso down hill. Z was starting to groove the power angle. He basically gave Zachary A+ in all of the biomechanic areas and told him he has really good mechanics.
This is exactly what Zachary needed to hear. It was tough watching him struggle last year. He basically got passed over by the worse pitcher on the team At one point, we even heard maybe he isn’t a pitcher. But something deep inside told me, that it needed to be drawn out of him. You could see the potential and that’s what we kept preaching to him. Don’t lost faith. Turns out, we weren’t wrong. He just lacked the functional strength and the knowledge how to combat it. With those tools in the tool box, he looks like a different kid. Now he just needs to be consistent. Again, we’re preaching, don’t rush that will come.
We’re so proud of the work that he has put into it. Life lessons. Personally, I’m most proud that he took a fixed obstacle and is figuring ways around it. We had a long talk about it while we walked the dogs, and it had nothing to do with baseball. It’s called life. Zachary is learning those valuable lessons and putting those tools in this life tool box.
