I'll be glad when the youth sports season comes to a close later this month - not because coaching T- ball is a little like herding cats or watching nine- year- olds play soccer has gotten a little too serious or tennis lessons seem a little more about the outfits than the forehand winners, but because I'm just so tired of searching for pieces of uniforms.

The pre- game panic that ensues in our house every Saturday morning because some sock is missing is just getting a little old. I don't know how it happens. The uniforms are supposed to go in the dirty clothes and into the laundry like every other stitch of clothing in our house, but some how, some way, a vital piece of someone's uniform always disappears into a dark abyss never to be seen again.

Actually, some uniform items do miraculously reappear. The other day I was walking up to my truck in a downtown parking space when a dark piece of cloth lying in the rain soaked gutter caught my eye. I bent down to take a closer look. As I did, the item became painfully familiar to me. It was my youngest daughter's black uniform sock - the one we searched for frantically before a game last weekend before finally deciding to put her in a pair of my work socks. How that sock got in that gutter, I'll never know. Maybe it wasn't even her sock, but it's hers now…until she loses it again.

On another note, I'm starting to wonder if I enjoy coaching my son's T- ball team because I get to watch him grow and develop as a player first- hand or because, as coach, I get to keep the extra uniforms. My son is already on hat number two and another pair of socks, and we're not even halfway through the season. Last weekend, he got his second jersey and had to wear an old plastic glove that I got for his oldest sister when she played T- ball six years ago. His first jersey did turn up at the bottom of a laundry pile, but his new glove has found its way into that abyss with the other missing pieces of uniforms.

No parent wants their kid to be the one on the team with the black shorts and purple socks when the uniform calls for red shorts and blue socks, but some days it takes a miracle simply to get that kid to the game, and the proper uniform finds itself way down the ol' priority list - especially at the end of the season.

That first game of the season is a beautiful thing. The uniforms are bright, shiny, and, most importantly, matching, but by the end of the season sometimes it's hard to tell the Ladybugs from the Fire Ants. Shiny uniforms are reduced to a pair of gym shorts, Daddy's work socks, and a T- shirt that vaguely resembles the team colors.

Watching the little mismatched crumb crunchers run up and down the field is slightly disturbing, but it's also very comforting to know that my kid isn't the only one in a pair of GoldToes.