Gotta love those life lessons!

Just recently Carter got his first real life lesson. 

Don't you love those? 

I was a dancer, and before I made my high school drill team, there was a lot of disappointments. I am glad for those, I think they kept me grounded, and let me know there are disappointments in life, and you have to get past those and work even harder!

A little background first. You all know that Carter plays baseball. Now 95% of boys at some point in their life try baseball. Its not a rare game!

But Carters a rare kid. We found his baseball talent when he was a tiny 4 years old. He never played T ball, he went right to regular little league at 5 years old.

From that day forward, we've had people come up to us every time he plays and tell us how good he is. To let you know how grounded we are, Ray did not pick Carter for All stars when he coached. He only got one pick, and there was a kid that was better than everyone else. I don't think there is a dad out there that can say he didn't pick his own kid!
As he kept playing however, politics really played out. Luckily Carter could care less, he just wanted to play baseball. I think half the time he didn't even know whether they won or lost.

We also discovered his first year of playing his skill for catching, and its been his primary position ever since.

 The last year or so Carter has had some real goals. He doesn't play baseball only for fun, he wants to make a career of it. He's looking at high school ball, scholarships for college, and even the major leagues. Of course he has a back up plan...he wants to be a pharmacist!
When we got here to California, and he had tryouts for baseball, many of the majors coaches wanted to draft him. The majors is 11/12 years old, Carter is 9! Ray and I both thought it out, weighed the pros and cons, and decided to let him play that far up. Its actually working in his favor. Because he is so much smaller than the other kids on his team, his skills really stand out, and everyone wants to know who the "little blond is" He's had a couple coaches come up to him and tell him to come see them when he turns 12.

He also started taking lessons at a baseball academy, a little something extra since high schools watch the local little league majors teams, and he wants to be noticed. The catchers class has been amazing for him! He takes the class with high school catchers, and that is really pushing his skills to the max!

So here's where the lesson comes in. After the season was over, he tried out and made a travel ball team associated with the academy he takes classes at. A travel ball team is just a more competitive team, they travel and do tournaments. He's been practicing with this team since April. We've also been paying for this travel ball team every month. We also didn't sign up for fall little league because of this travel ball team.

He adored the coach, and so did Ray and I at first. He would run through a brick wall for this coach, but lately it seemed as though some of the dads on the team were starting to take over. A bunch of parents were upset, but the coach told me, oh I don't do "daddy ball", but that's exactly what was happening. Some of these dads didn't like Carter, it seems to be a jealousy thing, so they started to belittle him constantly. We were trying to decide what to do, when the coach text Ray and told him that he was cutting Carter from the team, we were shocked!

 What makes us so angry is not that he cut Carter, but the way he did it. Not in person, through a text. We have been paying into this team since April, and we felt like he was taking our money, and then hand picking the kids he really wanted after he built up his funds.
Not only was Carter devastated, he was left without a team because fall ball started the week he was cut. Luckily, we called the little league and they were able to squeeze Carter onto one of their teams. Carter learned that people are not always as they seem, and it may be painful if you idolize someone too much. That just because someone played in the Major Leagues, doesn't make them a stand up coach or person.
Carter still takes classes from the academy, if we run into this coach, we'll just look the other way. Right now we are working on rebuilding confidence, because a child is easily brought down by words and actions.
But when he got back on the field last Saturday, he was the steller baseball player we all know he is, and because of this experience, he is a much stronger person on the inside as well!!