October 20

During Brady's pitching lesson this afternoon, a group of smaller boys --who I later learned were 10-11 years old-- began arriving for a game at an adjacent field. 

Brady threw a fastball, and one of the boys who was passing by exclaimed "wow, that was hard!" He threw another pitch a few moments later, and after it hit his coach's glove with a satisfying thwack, a voice chirped from behind me "Whoa, I heard that one! That was really hard!" 

They were clearly impressed. And I smiled to myself at their reaction. And then I got my biggest chuckle of the afternoon as the voice --in a very certain tone--  continued "... I'm pretty sure he plays in high school. He's got to play in high school." 

Although it still surprises me, he IS indeed in high school. And today his fastball reached 81 MPH. And now he's a kid the little kids look up to, which feels, well, crazy, because it doesn't seem like long ago that my boys looked up to the Big Kids.

He's definitely benefited from working with his coach --whose personality is quite like his own-- so I'm grateful for his influence and guidance. And I'm grateful that Brady is continuing to grow toward becoming the man God made him to be.