Braves Play Here!

Today my department at work had a United Way Fundraiser. This involved heading down to Turner Field at 11:30am for a tailgate party in the Blue Lot before heading in for the 1:10 game. So how is that a fundraiser you ask? Well, the food for the lunch & the tickets were paid for by various department managers in their budgets, but they asked everyone to pay $25 to attend, of which 100% went back to United Way. They allowed family & friends to come as well (for the same $25 donation), so I decided to take Zachary. We got down there and I was pleasantly surprised at how organized they were - they had a good lunch of burgers & hot dogs with various side items. Zachary enjoyed himself - he got a juice box, a cookie, AND a popsicle...stuff normally reserved for special occasions. We finally headed into the stadium for the start of the game. We walked in with a couple co-workers from my old group (former bosses - they didn't bring any family members with them). On the way, Zachary bit it in the parking lot again - only this time his arm started to bleed. Just a little bit, but the kid hugged his arm all the way to the stadium like it was broken, and he sobbed fake tears the whole way too. I think he was just tired - it was naptime by this point. We got inside and found the First Aid area, where we got a couple of band-aids (but because he was so hot, his arm was a little sweaty & they wouldn't stick - this did NOT make him happy). My former bosses stuck with us, and one of them told me about the little place at the top of the stadium (near the giant Coke bottle) where they have a place for kids to run the bases. Well, one base - it was home plate and first base. So we went to do that on the way to our seats...which were in the nosebleed. One of them asked the stadium worker if they were handing out oxygen masks up there. After a while a cotton candy vendor came by, but he was on the opposite side of the section (& moving farther away each second) by the time Zachary shouted "I want cotton candy!" We waited a little bit, but then he decided he wanted to run the base again & wanted to find cotton candy. He ran the base 3 times, and then we were off on our cotton candy mission. We started walking & finally saw a guy - but he went into one of the aisle, & we didn't know which one. I was starting to lose hope, when I saw a snowcone guy. I tried to talk Zachary into a snowcone instead - and he almost went for it, until we saw another cotton candy guy. We started booking it trying to catch up with him, only to lose him too. Then we saw another anowcone guy - I started my snowcone pitch again, and he almost went for it again, when we saw a stationary cart with cotton candy. Whew! By this point we were on the opposite side of the stadium, but he had his cotton candy. We started walking back when I decided to get a frozen lemonade (or, "lemolade", as Zachary calls it). As we waited in line I looked down as Zachary popped the last bite of cotton candy into his mouth!! I think that's a world record or something. We got back to the seats, & sat long enough to eat the frozen lemonade (which Zachary ate about half of...) before heading to the store. Zachary LOVES getting cash, and people have started giving him $1 bills in cards. He keeps the money in a wallet we got for him & then he takes it with us when we go somewhere like this so he can buy something. He picked out a foam tomahawk (even though he had no idea what it was - he just saw a crowd of kids around the bin & figured it must be something good), and a helmet. The grand total was $17, and he counted the money out all by himself. The cashier told him that since he did such a good job, she was giving him a receipt so he could show everyone how he did a good job of paying all by himself. He was SO proud of that receipt. He has told pretty much everyone we have talked to since coming home today about the receipt. And on the way out I told him that I wanted him to use the potty before we got in the car. We had gone in a port-a-potty in the parking lot during the tailgate (there was seriously nowhere else to go), and he actually said he wanted to wait & use the port-a-potty. ??? I was like, um, there's a perfectly good bathroom in the stadium. Nope - had to be the port-a-potty. Hopefully the novelty of that won't last too long. It was a fun day, and I thoroughly enjoyed Zachary-Mommy day. I think Josh is going to figure out something to do for Zachary-Daddy day later on this summer.

This morning I also took Liam back to the doctor for his ear re-check...still has an ear infection. BOOOO!!! She gave us a different antibiotic (I'm pretty sure that's why he still has one - because our favorite doctor - good ol' Dr. Emergency Room - gave him the same antibiotic twice in a row, and although I did not go to medical school, I know that's generally not a good idea...they aren't as effective when you do that). So we have a different one, and hopefully it will clear it up without any drug reactions.