Baseball

I took Clay to his first big league baseball game this past Sunday. We went to see our Washington Nationals take on the Atlanta Braves. Clay was kind of impressed with RFK Stadium. Remember, his idea of a baseball stadium in a softball field in West Potomac Park. We had good seat in the Mezzanine so there was no one in front of us.

The entire way there, Clay told me that all he wanted at the stadium was popcorn. So after we found our seats, I said Ok, lets go get some popcorn and get back to watch some batting practice. Holy Smokes! We must have spent 40 minutes walking around RFK looking for a vendor selling popcorn. Finally, we found it and spent $6 for a bucket of kettle corn. After the walk back to our seat; and a stop for a hot dog and beer for dad; we opened the popcorn. Naturally, Clay decided he didn't like it. So he ate the cookies that mom packed for him. She jokes that there were 9 cookies there; one for each inning. Well, sorry mom but they were gone by the bottom of the 4th, and that was with rationing.

The Nats lost 0-3, but we had a great time and I hope Clay will remember that he saw one of the last games at RFK Stadium. Next year, there's a new Nationals Park where we will go many times.

Weekend in Pittsburgh: Part 1

Well, we just returned from a whirlwind super long weekend in Pittsburgh. We drove all over: Dahntahn, Squirl 'il, Wes End, Sahs Side, Nor Side an' even ova der in Swickley n'at. For thos eof you who don't speak Pittsburgheese, I'll translate: We drove all over: Downtown, Squirrel Hill, West End, South Side, North Side and even over there in Sewickley and more.

But one of the best things was getting free tickets (Thank You Anna W!) to the Carnegie Science Center. Back in July, we took the kids to the Children's Museum of Richmond and Clay had a blast. But the CSS had so much more and I think Clay would have stayed until closing if we would have let him. The only thing that made him even think about leaving was the last 15 minutes playing at the water tables. He did the all too familiar "pee-pee dance". One hand holding his crotch and bouncing up and down rapidly, while giving us that look like, "I can still hold it another 5 minutes".

Well, let's just say that we cut it pretty close. But we had a full three hours at the CSS. One of the highlights for me was seeing a show in the Planetarium called "The Stars Over Mister Rogers' Neighborhood". It was hosted by the late Fred Roger; a Pittsburgh icon; and was a neat 20 minute show for the under 7 crowd. Clay enjoyed it, even though in this age of Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, PBSKids Sprout and all the rest, he hasn't really ever watched Mr. Rogers. I remember watching him almost 40 years ago and and even in college we had discussions about the Neighborhood of Makebelieve and even went to get Mr. McFeeley's autograph once ("Speedy Delivery"!).

I think I'm going to make an effort for Clay to watch less "Zack & Cody" and a little more "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood"