This Sunday will officially end another season, another year, really, of travel baseball.

Some cannot – and do not – understand why we do it, my wife and I. Why would we spend so much of our hard earned money on team fees, equipment, uniforms, hotels, gas, lessons? Why would we spend so much of our most precious commodity – that of time – doing this?

After all, our oldest son is 11. One of hundreds of thousands of boys playing baseball, of thousands playing this thing called travel ball. We cannot possibly believe he will make it big, can we? We cannot actually believe he’ll get a college scholarship and advance to the MLB draft, right? We can’t be that naive.

The questions never stop, really. From family, from friends, from co-workers. What we will do with our other three children when they say they want to do it, or something that conflicts? How do you take vacations? Don’t the other kids hate it?

Sometimes, we don’t have the answers, because, well, we don’t.

Honestly, we don’t know what the future holds. What we know – all we know, really – is what we value and what we believe.

We believe in our children. We’re not irrational, mind you. We’re aware of each of their areas of weakness, where they can improve and we work on it, tirelessly.

Some days, we’re more successful than others. Other days, two are pouting, one has melted down completely into a screaming banshee from some distant planet and another looks as though they haven’t ever been shown how to take a bath, clothe themselves or comb their hair.

It’s chaotic, it’s beautiful, it’s our life.

Right now, we have a son who has a gift and a passion for the sport of baseball. We’re following his lead, really. He has stated his goals and works hard at honing his skills. He lives it and breathes it.

And he dominates our schedule. Tournaments in other states, for three or four days at a time. We’ve seen the sun come up on the way to the baseball fields and been there long after it’s gone down. Our summers are blur of dirt, cheering, consoling, feeding snacks, sunscreen, sweat and a van full of passed out, dirty kids on a late Sunday afternoon.

Will we do it for the other kids? Whether it be gymnastics, soccer, basketball, chess, dance, theater or macaroni performance art, yes, we will.

And we’ll buy the Macaroni Performance Art team gear, to boot.

As so many know, it’s just what you do. What else are you going to do? Sit around? Nah, I can do that when I’m 50.

It’s not always easy. Nights of drop off and pickup, coordinating schedules, still in my business casual from work at 10:30pm. Eating dinner or lunch at weird hours. One heading to gymnastics, another to basketball, another a hitting lesson. Feeling guilty again asking for help from our family, another parent on  the team.

Yet even when weary, we find we would not change it. Our children are organized, responsible. They support each other, they get their chores done. They excel in school.

Could this backfire? Maybe. I don’t know.

But what I do know is that we’ll never tell them they cannot do something. Our job is to not only keep them safe and make them good-natured, productive members of society, but to subtly nudge them to attempt to be great.

We don’t want them settling for something, anything, when they are capable of more. Whatever they chose will be fine, as long as it was a choice. It has to be what they want. This is how, we’re convinced, they can do their part to live differently, to change the world in their special way, with whatever gifts have been given to them.

Rarely do I write solely about my family. I’ll have a hard time publishing this post, mainly because I always thought of pieces like this a “Come Blow Your (Own) Horn” moment. But that’s not my intention.

We’re not perfect, far from it, in fact. All any of us can really do in life is follow a combination of heart, instinct, some kind of faith or belief (in something) and a sense of right or wrong. The rest will figure itself out.

Do I know if this world of travel baseball is right? How can I? It feels like it. Do I know if we’re raising our children to actually do what we want, which is to follow their passions? It feels like it. And that’s life, really, just a bunch of moments built on feeling something.

Emotion is what gives life, well, life.

So I’ll take every dirt angel in the summer, every night spent washing a uniform, every time we’re squeezing in a movie or a family dinner that actually takes place at our kitchen table. I’ll take every road trip, every moment with the iPod plugged in and the whole family – including the 21 month old – singing “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da.”

Our mini-van turns into a recording studio, a little traveling band: Mom, Dad, three boys and a girl. The lyrics to our song of life are noisy gyms, cracking baseball bats, football pads colliding, paintbrushes dipping into cups, toys strewn from one floor to the next, barking dogs, dirty dishes, sidewalk chalk, tears, laughter, and more laughter.

This is our life. And I wouldn’t want to miss it.

Right now, it’s travel baseball. In five years, it could be something else. Whatever it is, it will keep our family tight-knit, supportive and growing as individuals, and as a family.

My wife and I found our purpose, and it wasn’t for a job, a career or paying bills. It was to pour every ounce of what we have into the children that a higher power entrusted in our care.

We can’t know if we’re doing it the right way or the wrong way. We can only go on feeling it out as we go.

Maybe they’ll change the world, in their own way.

And maybe is worth everything.