(no subject)

I'm taking Éiden to his first baseball/Red Sox game which makes me both excited and anxious as I have no  idea how he will act at the game or if he'll even be interested in it.  I'm hoping he will and we're close enough that he'll actually be able to see the players faces rather than just tiny little figures so he'll be able to see Papi though not his favorite, Manny, who is being given the night off for some reason.

Oddly, Tim Wakefield is pitching tonight for the Sox, the same pitcher who was on the mound when haddayr and I took Arie to his first ball game as a six month old in 2002.  The thought of this makes me feel a little sad because it was Arie who was originally supposed to be going but is not because of his behavior at school for the past month.  I know it's the right consequence (as it was something that mattered to him -- not all of his consequences do) but I still feel sad about it since I'd also been looking forward to it.

Right now Arie and Haddayr are both playing a board game in the other room and they'll be spending some Mother/son time alone tonight which they don't often get to do (at least not without Éiden also being involved).  They sound like they're having a a really nice time.

Taking Éiden to the ballgame

Éiden sat up in my lap, looking out.  Jacoby Ellsbury had just grounded out to start the game and Big Papi was on deck.

"There he is Éiden," I said and pointed down to the on deck circle where Papi had just walked out.  Our seats were right behind home plate, eighteen rows up, so had a good view of the players. Éiden looked down to where I was pointing.

"Where?" he asked.

"RIght there," I said and showed him again.  Éiden looked again and saw him, holding his pink bat for Mother's Day.

"Oh," he said.  "There he is."  And his eyes grew as he stared at Big Papi and he pointed down at him.  He'd seen him on television many times before but this was Big Papi here in person.  Standing in the on deck circle.  Right down in front on us.

Éiden watched the at bats intently, following the ball from the pitcher's hand to the bat, following the batted ball to it's end spot, marveling at live baseball in front of him.  As the game went on, he began to lose interest and after the second inning we went and I bought him a $6 bucket of popcorn that was not as big as his head but more like two of his head put together (and the kid's got a pretty big noggin).  Throughout the next few innings he finished most of the popcorn (with only minimal help from me).  He kept watching and cheered with me when the Red Sox started to score but most of his time was devoted to eating popcorn and flirting with the people sitting around us.

After about two hours of the game, in the bottom of the fifth, Éiden started to get tired, his eyelids getting droopy.  I asked him if he wanted to leave after we saw Papi hit one more time and he said yes.  So we watched Papi hit again, striking out and left.  Éiden waved goodbye to the people around us, raising his fists over his head in some display of machismo for one of the guys who laughed and raised his fists back.

As we walked out of the Metrodome, the cool spring air revived us.  As I put Éiden's jacket on, he looked up to the clear sky and said, "Look
there's the moon!"

I looked up to see the moon he was pointing at, glowing bright over Minneapolis, a waxing half moon, beautiful above us.  As we walked through the streets back to the car we kept seeing the moon reappear from behind buildings and each time Éiden would point and yell, "Look another moon!"

We talked about the game and about what we saw.  We talked about the moon and about the cars parked on the street and how Éiden thought some of them looked like Rocket Boxes, a matchbox car that he owns.  We talked about how we'd gone to see the Harlem Globe Trotters and about the houses and apartments we passed.  We stopped as I pointed out where haddayr works.  Éiden showed me how Super-grilla walks and he laughed at his silliness.  We held hands down the street as I carried the nearly empty popcorn bucket in my free hand and we enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful spring evening and being silly and laughing as we walked back to the car to drive home.