Tony, if you haven’t already discovered this, loves baseball. Before he proposed, he took 2 months off and travelled across the States to watch 30 baseball games. That’s more than 90 hours of live baseball. That’s a lot of baseball.

So I guess it should come as no surprise that his first birthday present to his daughter would be a T-ball set.

Little Tikes T ball set
Happy Birthday from Daddoh
Unwrapping the present
Giving your daughter her first bat and ball is always a special moment.
Tony handing the bat to Arddun
“Have a go!”

Even though the box claims it’s good for children from 18 months, the bat is actually too heavy for Arddun to lift with one hand. She hasn’t quite gotten the concept of holding it with both hands, let alone swinging the bat over her shoulder and then spitting tobacco on the plate.

And so now it’s become their thing. When Daddoh comes home from work early enough, they play ball. Arddun will hold her pink plastic bat in her left hand, and smack the ball off the T bar with her right.

Then Daddoh picks up the ball, places it back on the T bar, takes the bat from her left hand, and shows her how it’s done.

Then Arddun picks up the pink plastic bat in her left hand, waddles over, and smacks the ball off the T bar with her right.

Rinse, repeat.

Arddun pushes ball off T bar
“This is how it’s done, Daddoh.”

Anyhoo, it’s their special thing now. And some evenings, when the sun’s almost set and it feels like Daddoh should be home any minute, Arddun will find that bat, pick it up, and walk with it to the door muttering, “Dad-doh… Dad-doh…” to herself. Methinks baseball might become her thing, after all.