The Sporting Life

The last couple of days have seen Boo getting acquainted with local sports action. (Bowling counts as athletics in this area.)

We met up with my friend Nikki (she's the childhood friend of my old DC roommate, Sarah) and her little boy, Tommy, for a day of attempted bowling. Bumpers were definitely on deck. Here are the kids (a little blurry) in their little shoes:

Boo seemed to like bowling technology more than the game itself. She spent a lot of the time staring into the ball-return machine, so much I was waiting for her to get smacked in the face by a Brunswick 10-pounder.

Today (Mother's Day), we took in our first baseball game. The area now has its first real minor-league team in some 50 years, the IronPigs (it's a steelworking term), and they built a shiny new ballpark and it's the thing to do this spring and summer. LSI, a locally-based tech firm, has a corporate box that they graciously gave to the Da Vinci Center to use today, so I snagged tickets and took my hubby and my baby bear. They had a full catered spread and everything-- very nice. We all agreed it'll be hard to go back and sit in the regular Nonprofit Employee Cheap Seats.

Boo had a great time...

...until the mascot came up to the box and scared the absolute living bejeezus out of her. I didn't realize she was still scared of people in animal suits (she had done well with the Easter Bunny at her school), otherwise I would have hauled her out of there when he showed up. Her reaction was remarkable and startling: she hit the deck, crawled on her belly like a Navy SEAL under the seats, and crawled like hell down the row into the next box (under the legs of our local weather guy). I couldn't help laughing, but bless her heart, she was TERRIFIED. I had never seen her so scared. We managed to calm her down and were able to stay for the rest of the game.

Then in the car home, she asked about the mascot. He's a pig.

We were like, yes, honey, he's a pig, and he didn't mean to scare you. It's okay.

She pipes up with, "I wanna see him again!" Go figure.