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| Leaving for the game |
A few weekends ago I had a chance to take Noah to the Royals game. Elliot was sick, so instead of he and Mandy going, Noah got to take his friend Liam. The weather was cool and sunny, and a great day for a ballgame even though I knew the odds of me actually sitting and watching it were chancy at best. The drive over was a hoot, and I wish I could remember all the things Noah and Liam talked about. It’s one thing to have a conversation with a 4-year old, and it’s quite another to listen to two of them talking between themselves.
We got there right as the opening fireworks were going off, which fascinated them both. It was also “Shirt Day” at the K, and they were handing out baseball jerseys at the entrance. All they had left were men’s extra larges, but Noah and Liam took what was handed to them anyway.
As soon as we sit down, Noah announces he wants a hot dog. It is lunch time, and I did figure this was coming, so we get up and troop back up to the concession stand. While I order the hot dogs, the boys see the glass-case full of pretzels and start clamoring for one of those too. “Can you share one?” I ask, hoping we’re not going to waste a bunch of food at Royals’ prices. Nope, they each have to have their own - one salted, one unsalted. Water too. Ketchup on one hot dog, none on the other. I’m getting orders shouted at me like it’s my first day on the job as a waiter at the truck stop. I manage to juggle all this and we make our way back to the seats.
To their credit, they did manage to finish all this off. Then the peanut guy walked by hawking peanuts. Noah decides he wants some. As much as I try to explain baseball to Noah, I’m convinced he thinks a Royals game is just about food. He thinks it’s great that people walk around the stadium, right up to your seats even, handing out “free” food. He can’t imagine why we don’t take advantage. “I want peanuts!” “Sorry, Noah, you can’t have any.” “Why?” “Because you’ve had enough to eat and Liam is allergic to peanuts.” We repeat this approximately 3,153 times, when the guy behind me taps me on the shoulder with a bag of peanuts. He’s probably as tired of it as I am. “Here, I’m done with these.” I grab a couple of peanuts, thank him and hand one to Noah. It does the trick. A minute later, I look over to see Noah chewing with a funny look on his face, and most of the peanut and the shell gone. Perhaps I should have explained how peanuts worked, but he was so insistent on getting them I figured he knew what they were.
I did my best to explain the game, and while I was impressed that they would clap and cheer whenever the crowd did, they were more interested in watching the big screen, and the ketchup-mustard-relish race. Pretty soon, the boys are bouncing around in their seats, having a tough time paying attention to the game. We head off to the outfield, which has a number of things for kids to entertain themselves on. The guys behind us offer to watch our stuff so I don’t have to lug that as well. They’ve been entertained by the chattering of the boys, and they know as well as I do that I’m probably not going to see much of this game.
As we head to the outfield, they see a popcorn stand and decide they’re hungry again. Again I ask if they can share one, and again they say no. Since the “small” could feed a village, I ask the vendor if he can just take a small and put it in two bags. No can do. So I get two bags of popcorn, and follow as they walk aimlessly through the oncoming crowd, periodically knocking people off course while looking down.
We watch the game from the outfield for a few minutes, then grabbed some tokens for the merry-go-round. The operator tells us we can’t bring the popcorn in. Liam thinks he’s trying to take it away from him and won’t budge. Finally, we negotiate a resolution to the standoff, and get some horses. They have a great time, and after they get off they head to the playground next door. I’m hoping this energy expenditure will allow them to sit in their seats for a while, so that I can catch a little of the game. One more merry-go-round ride, and one more trip to the playground, and we head back to our seats. The men behind us tell me they were just wondering I was going to get to see any more of the game. The Royals have managed to score five runs, and the only piece of that I caught was the cheer from the crowds.
Given how much I’ve fed them, I only have myself to blame for the next, predictable sequence of events. We’ve just sat down when nature calls, as it normally does for Noah, in a loud, unfiltered voice – “Daddy, I have to POOP!” That sets off the guys behind us again. I smile, and sigh. Ok, let’s get it over with. “Come on, Liam, you’re coming with us.” We rush back up the stairs to the bathrooms, when Noah decides he no longer has to go. We turn to head back down to the seats, but Liam decides now he has to use the bathroom. I get him situated, he locks the door and gets down to business. The minute I do, Noah decides nature wasn’t fooling around, and now he’s got to go too. Now, we’ve not yet mastered simply taking your jeans down to your ankles, no, they have to come completely off. And unlike Liam, Noah wants the door wiiiiide open, the heck with modesty.
So now we’re occupying two out of the three toilets, as a line forms during the 7th inning stretch. I’m standing there with a pair of pants in one hand, and one foot trying to keep the door to Noah’s stall at least partially closed, when I hear Liam yelp a few minutes later that he got his pants wet and he needs some help. Now, this is a problem that had not occurred to me when he originally insisted on locking the door, and I tried to coax him off the toilet, and over to the door to unlock it.
“I need help!” “Liam, buddy, you have to unlock the door.“ “I can’t.” “I’m sorry, but you’re gonna have to.” While Liam is yelling at me to help him, Noah is shouting at the top of his lungs, “Crawl under, daddy, crawl under!” Liam mimics him, “Crawl under!” “No, I’m not crawling under. You’re going to have to unlock the door, bud.” “I can’t, my pants are wet!” “Crawl under daddy, CRAWL UNDER!” I turn and look at the line of amused, patient faces behind me, take another deep breath and tell Liam, “I’m not crawling under. You need to get up, and unlock the door.”
He finally does so, and I take stock. He starts to get upset, refuses to pull his pants up and says he doesn’t want to wear wet pants. He sees Noah’s pants in my hand, and insists on wearing those. “Sorry, buddy, but Noah has to wear these. We can leave right now to take you home for some new clothes, but Noah is wearing these.” Logic is not winning the day here, and he continues to insist I give him Noah’s pants. I hear Noah helpfully yell from the other stall that he can wear them. I finally get Liam cleaned up as best I can, and pull his pants up. If I had been thinking, I could have used the XL jersey we were given, fashioned them into a pair of pants, and run for home, but I had left all that down at our seats.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been at this – it feels like an hour, and the running commentary from the next stall never stops, and I may actually be starting to sweat. I come out, ask Noah if he’s done yet, hoping we can wrap this up and move on. He yells (much to the chagrin of those in line, I’m sure), “Only 15 more minutes!” Why am I not surprised? In this regard, Noah’s never been one to hurry things. In the time it takes him to go to the bathroom, he could not only read a book, he could write one. Right now, reading a book would be helpful, as it might quiet him down a little.
I wait a few minutes, and as I’m trying to tell Noah to hurry up, Liam’s trying to tell me something. Now he’s gotta go too. You couldn’t have done this a few minutes ago, before the wrestling match and protracted pants negotiation? Back to the stall we go, and down to business.
My hope for a quick, inauspicious visit and back to the ballgame is a distant memory. I’m all-in now, having again commandeered two-thirds of the bathroom in the face of a long line of visitors. These two are chattering back and forth like they’re discussing politics, grunting like two old men on Metamucil, while I keep one hand closing the door to Liam’s stall and one foot on the door to Noah’s. Liam keeps asking me to lock his door. No sir, I’m not falling for that one again. I ask Noah again, without much real hope, if he’s about done. Between what has to be clenched teeth, he grunts out “Only. One. More. Poop!” The guys behind me all laugh. At least he’s giving it the old college try.
Finally, the crowd clears out, the two boys finish up and we somehow take another 15 minutes washing every one's hands. We get back to our seats with about an inning left in the game and sit down. Then Liam spots Slugger (the Royals mascot) a section over. He and Noah start yelling that they want to see Slugger, and as I tell them he’ll be over here soon,we come down to the last out of the game. I spot an open row in the section next to us, scoot the boys across, and try to start heading down the 10 or so rows to where Slugger is. Suddenly the game is over, he takes off, jumps onto the dugout, races across, jumps down and is gone. Shit. “Ooh-kay, time to leave boys!”, I say as happily as I can muster. I try to head them to the car before they realize we’re not going to see Slugger and get about halfway up to the concourse when they start talking about not having gotten any cotton candy.
After all this, I know the memory these two will take away from this game is that I deprived them of cotton candy and they didn’t get to see Slugger. A few more steps and Noah’s whining about cotton candy picks up and Liam starts crying because he didn’t get to see Slugger. I figure the disappointment couldn't get any worse if we can’t find him, so I turn them around and we go back in the stadium to look for Slugger, on the off-chance he’s standing there greeting kids or something. Unsurprisingly, he’s not, and there’s not a cotton candy vendor in sight, so I disappoint them a second time.
We finally get back to the van and head home. They’re both asking if we can stop in Brookside for cotton candy. Since I’m weak by this point, and not above telling them anything that will get us closer to home without a meltdown, I tell them we’ll at least look. I scratch my head and remember there’s a Topsy’s that sells it just a few blocks from our house. As we drive by, I see a huge line out the door of people waiting for ice cream. I can’t imagine trying to find a space and then waiting with two tired boys, so I just keep driving and head for home, and pretend I never said we’d look. They didn’t miss it, and they both ask why we’re not stopping. Fortunately they dropped it and we made it home.
I can’t be sure how much they enjoyed themselves, at least beyond the immediate happiness of the food, a merry-go-round and the jungle gym, but I had a good time.
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| Finishing off the popcorn |
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| This is as close as we got to Slugger before he ran away. I don't know who it was throwing popcorn at the guy in front of us. |
