Between Us Girls

Softball Lessons

     My daughter started softball this spring.  She's seven, totally inexperienced and very excited.  I'm hoping that she'll learn all of the important stuff that she needs to become a good ball player, but I'm hoping she'll learn some important life lessons as well.  A very inspiring story from the news this week makes me believe that my hopes may be justified.

     Maybe some of you already heard this story, but it is well-worth repeating.  This past week, the women's softball teams from Central Washington University and Western Oregon University were competing in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.  Sara Tucholsky, a senior player with the Western Oregon team came up to bat.  With two runners on base and a strike to her credit, she did something she had never done before; she hit a home run!  The crowd cheered as Sara began running the bases but, in her excitement, she failed to actually touch first base.  She turned to step back and tag it and, suddenly, collapsed.  Sara's quick turn had torn a knee ligament.

                                                                    Unable to get up, Sara looked to the first base coach who told her that it was against the rules for her teammates to help her.  The umpire stepped in and said that her team could send in a pinch runner, but the hit would only count as a single.

    In order for the hit to count as a home run, Sara herself would need to touch all of the bases.  Sara was devastated.

    It was then that Mallory Holtman, first baseman for Central Washington University, stepped up to the plate - so to speak.  Mallory asked if there were any rules that would prohibit her, a member of the opposing team, from helping Sara.  When the umpire said no, Mallory and her teammate, Liz Wallace, carefully picked up Sara Tucholsky and carried her from base to base, pausing just long enough for Sara to reach down with her uninjured leg and touch each of them. 

     The three-run homer counted and as a result, Mallory and Liz's team not only lost the game, but lost any chance of winning the conference and going on to the play-offs.  Mallory (Read more...)

The Art of Listening

      It's true that having ears is a prerequisite for hearing, but simply having the appropriate equipment is not enough.  Ears allow us to hear, but listening is something far greater than that; it is what happens when we choose to sit up and take notice.

     Another way to put it is that hearing is a passive process.  We might hear the train off in the distance while we also hear the sizzle in our saute pan and our child telling us about the most recent episode of their favorite cartoon.  We may hear all of this but at the same time not really be aware of most of it. 

     The sounds that we are truly aware of are those to which we choose to listen.  Listening is an active process.  We make a conscious choice to attend to the sounds, (Read more...)

Communication Skills: How to Speak and be Heard

      Did you hear me?  I'm talking to you...are you listening?  How many times do I have to repeat myself?  I already told you.  Don't ask me a question if you're not going to listen to the answer.  I need you to...

     Honestly I get tired of hearing myself sometimes, but one thing that I know for sure is that everyone else stopped listening a long time ago.  At least that's how it seems.

      I have sometimes wondered aloud if my voice is in the same register as a dog whistle.  Maybe dogs everywhere are scurrying to clean their rooms, turn the t.v. off and organize the office.

     It isn't just children and spouses who can tune us out though.  Whether at work, at home, or out with friends, at times we all feel that we just aren't being heard.  But wait...before you go for the megaphone...there are other ways that we can make ourselves (Read more...)