Safe at third...

Though she hasn't removed her catcher's garb while batting, Edith makes a perfect slide into the bag on her line drive to right field (she's a leftie, of course).

Like all parents, Tom and I hope not to project our own unfulfilled dreams onto our child. Edith does not have to be either an English boarding school student (I was hooked on the genre long before Harry Potter) or a dancing cowboy if she doesn't want to. On the other hand, there are activities that have brought such pleasure to our lives that we naturally hope Edith will be enthusiastic about them, too. Tom has always said that the one sport he wants his offspring to try, at least for awhile, is baseball. (And don't think because we had a girl that it has to be softball: Tom's sister was a baseball Little Leaguer.) Since softball was my own single foray into the world of athletics, and a happy one at that, I'm perfectly willing to aid in this endeavor.

Edith's early life was perfectly timed to the summer intramural softball season at Princeton. The Revolting Masses--the history department team on which Tom and I both play--had its first practice of the season a few days before Edith was born. She and I sat in the shade and cheered everyone on. A week or two after her birth, she and I started accompanying Tom to games, where we'd set up a chair in the grass along the first base line. Very quickly the clink of bat on ball, the smack of ball against leather, and the banter across the field seemed to be soothing her.

When I finally returned to the game, Edith made the acquaintance of the rest of the team. Whoever was on the bench would hold her. Our team, all the rest men and most unfamiliar with babies, was impressed that she was equally gracious to all, no matter their batting averages, and did not turn up her nose at the multiple layers of sweat accumulating on her onesie.

So Edith traveled all the way through the season with us, in attendance in any weather. (Though she did take early cover in the car during the game in a lightning storm, when a bolt touching down on the field was the only thing that persuaded her father to drop the bat and run. If her parents were nuts, that was their business.) She cheered us to the championships and mourned with us at the Annex over greasy appetizers and bad beer when, per usual, we lost in the final game.

Pretty soon it will be her turn. She's practicing already...