baseball and caterpillars

Last night we decided to take the kids to a Diamond Jaxx ballgame. It was the first game at the park this season; an exibition between the Memphis Redbirds (AAA Cardinals) and our hometown Jaxx (AA Mariners). As soon as we walked into the stadium I saw a look of amazement in Zach's eyes. He was soaking it all in. He headed straight down the stairs toward the field and plopped himself in the front row by the Redbirds dugout. I was so happy to see my boy excited about baseball.

After sitting there a few minutes I was finally able to get him to walk to our fifth row seats behind the Jaxx dugout (good seats aren't hard to come by). Then about 3 pitches into the game, Zach decided he had enough baseball. So Angie took him to buy a Chicago Dog (Angie highly recommends) and a pretzel. I kept watch over Sam, who also wanted to do nothing but walk. I think he covered every square inch of the park before the night was over...along with the rest of the family.

When Angie got back with Zach, he sat still long enough to take a couple of bites of the pretzel. Zach wanted to go for a walk. He and I walked all over the park and out into the berm, while Angie continued to make the rounds with Sam. While out in the berm, Zach discovered the caterpillars, which he took much more interest in than the ballgame. We followed the line of them until we had gone as far inside the walls of the park as we could go. Finally I convinced Zach we should head back toward our seats.

We we returned, Sam was tired and Zach still didn't have much interest in the game. We decided to hang it up in the fifth inning and head home. Although we didn't see more than a few pitches, we all had a good time.