Take me out to the ballgame...

I was a skeptic. When we were making plans to participate in State Farm's Lewisburg Community Night at the Crosscutters in Williamsport, if I had placed bets, I'd have guessed we would have been packing up our toddler and heading home no later than the 3rd inning of the baseball game due to scrooching, general disinterest, and the potential for a full scale meltdown.



Boy was I ever wrong. Just goes to show how little I know about things. Or maybe how unpredictable said toddler really is. (Let's go with that one.)



Last evening was a beautiful night to be somewhere other than inside our house, so I'm glad it worked out that we had somewhere fun to go. I had officially shirked my duties as a junk hander-outer with the other State Farm clad representatives. (It's too hot, and I'm too fat to be standing around handing out things with State Farm on them. Besides, I wasn't about to take the maybe one hour of cooperative time with Joshua and use it to hand out goodies. So thanks to the others who were there, they took my purchased contributions and handed them out minus me.) We happened to spot Jason's co-workers and sat with them. Joshua quickly made friends and spent his evening running back and forth between the legs of people to his buddies down the row. If he stepped on their toes as many times as he did mine, I should apologize. Between Jason and Donna, he got quite an education about baseball. He cheered loudly for the homeruns (there were 3) and decided that someday he wants to be a pitcher, despite his Daddy's advice that he could make far more money as a football player. We'll see how that shakes out.



The highlight of the evening was certainly Boomer, though. While most 2 year olds would likely be afraid of a large, brightly colored, overzealous cartoon animal with a person inside it, Joshua most clearly was not. Every time he spotted him, he had to run up and give him a hug. It got to the point where I was starting to get embarassed about the number of times we were up and down to stalk Boomer around the stadium. There may be charges filed. I can't really say for sure. Boomer gave Joshua a baseball card with his picture on it, and it it probably Joshua's most prized possession today. He was also quite fond of the roll of carpet...an odd choice for a mascot, but someone was advertising something, so all bets are really off when it comes to that. I've spent a good number of hours in a State Farm Good NeighBear costume, so I really don't have much room to be critical.





When it was all said and done, Joshua summed it up in the car by saying, "Thanks for taking me there. I had so much fun." He also asked to include meeting Boomer and going to the baseball game in his prayers of things to thank God for last night before he closed his eyes. I guess it was an evening well-spent. And for the record, we made it all 9 innings.