On Saturday, Nora and I went to the trail for a run while Billy did yard work, and when we finished, Nora danced around for a bit while two women played music at the ranger station. In the afternoon we headed down to an outdoor craft fair near Nora's school. We didn't find any crafts we couldn't live without, but Nora loved her first taste of a snowball. (For non-Maryland natives, a "snowball" is like a sno-cone except bigger and more delicious because they don't skimp on the syrup. And there are snowball stands everywhere.) She must be a Marylander because she liked the chocolate syrup with marshmallow variety Billy favors-- but that was fine with me, because it meant I didn't have to share my cherry one. Playing with this balloon kept her happily occupied until she spotted a "doggie" and repeatedly tried to run over to him.
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This afternoon we took her to her first baseball game! I see babies and toddler at baseball games all the time, but I have no idea how people manage this. Are other babies and toddlers content to sit still? Well, ours is not. We decided we'd start by taking her to a Bowie Baysox game, but we didn't realize until today that it happened to be "Bark in the Park." There were at least 50 dogs there, which means this outing was basically the best thing that has ever happened to Nora. She kept shouting "doggie!" and running toward them. This is when I find myself saying insane things like, "We say hello with our words, not with our hands." Thankfully, all the dogs she approached were well behaved and all the dog owners were charmed by her. After being given permission to pet what looked to me like a very tall greyhound, she reached up and hugged him right around the neck and said "awww!" I apologized profusely for this decidedly un-gentle maneuver, but his owner just laughed, told me it was the cutest thing he had ever seen, and had his wife bring over their other tall greyhound to see she would do it again. Her other favorite DOGGIE! was a short, stocky bulldog that let her rest her head on his back while tried (unsuccessfully) to wrap her arms around him. (This dog had three human siblings, including a newborn, and in my conversation with his mom I learned that he is quite accustomed to rough affection.)
She did not love the Merry-Go-Round. When it started going, she got this semi-terrified look on her face, but she let me talk her through it for a few spins before she asked to get "up up up!" Once I picked her up she seemed to like the spinning, and when the carousel stopped she wanted to get back on the horse. Of course.
As for the baseball, she did better than we were expecting. The anecdotes above reveal that I had to take her out of the seating area several times to walk her around, but she did stand and watch the game for a while when we first got there, and then once we introduced milk and snacks she sat patiently on my lap for quite a while. I loved going to baseball games with my family when I was little, so I hope that she will learn to enjoy watching the game, too. It choked me up a little to see her there with her Daddy in her Orioles hat. I can honestly distinctly remember the first time my dad took me to a game at Oakland coliseum, if recalling the long walk through the sloping cement concourse and the A's teddy bear Dad bought me counts as "remembering."
There was one key sign that she might be a baseball fan at heart: the clapping. She joined in with the clapping so frequently and with such good timing that it was hard to believe she honestly has no idea what warrants a clap in baseball.
You know how in Field of Dreams, Ray's daughter Karen says "Daddy, there's a man on your lawn," and it means she can see what her dad dreams? That is what I like to imagine is going on in this picture.
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