The Green Skittle

My son plays on a T-ball team with 11 other 5 and 6 year old boys. They have a lot of fun and the coach is laid-back and handles the boys' playfulness well. Their games are always interesting, because it doesn't take long until the boys in the field are terribly distracted and finding things other than baseball to occupy their time and energy. This week we had a left fielder who was lying in the green grass making the motions to make a snow angel. We had a right fielder who was kneeling on the ground with his head touching the ground in front of him. At another time the center fielder and right fielder had their arms around each other in deep conversation and were pointing to something off the field. The third baseman was skipping around in circles during the 2nd inning, and the short fielder was playing his own imaginary ball game with his very own imaginary ball. The short stop had his ball glove on his head to the chagrin of his mother who kept yelling for him to put it back on. The center fielder kept sitting down and twirling in circles making what I'm sure will be an awful grass stain to get out of the seat of his pants. Several children drew pictures in the sand, and my own son took his glove off, and repeatedly threw it in the air and caught it. It's all very entertaining to watch.

However, this week there was a particular item that proved to be a HUGE source of distraction and entertainment for the boys. In the on-deck circle, there was a green Skittle. One Skittle. Every child that stepped into the on-deck circle found something interesting to do with that Skittle. It was flicked, flipped, stomped, twirled, buried, unburied, tossed, balanced on shoes, stacked on rocks, kicked, hit with the bat, thrown in the air and caught, and bounced in ball caps. It's amazing what can entertain a 5 or 6 year old boy, and it's amazing that they found so many different things to do with that one little Skittle. I was just shocked and thankful that not a single child put the Skittle in his mouth!