We took our children to a game at Chase Field and our daughter entertained the entire nosebleed section.
The folks down at the ballpark like to keep the crowd entertained by leading us in varying "clap-along" games; different rhythms, different background music. There is, of course, the well-known, ever-popular version involving rhythmic clapping followed by thousands of fans shouting "Charge!" This is, apparently, our daughter's favorite game. After every single "clap-along" thing they did, she would yell "CHARGE!" It didn't seem to matter if the game we were playing was actually the "charge" one.
This went on for some 20 minutes. Finally the actual "charge" one came up. She must have finally decided they weren't going to do "charge" because she didn't yell it afterward. Just sat there looking vaguely bored. Of course, everyone in the section looked shocked that she didn't scream out in unfettered excitement. Instead she looked up at me with a look of complete despondent shock and said, "I missed it."
The shock of that experience must have eventually worn off because she found another way to entertain us all. She decided to sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Our little girl is quite excessively allergic to peanuts and, as a result, she refused to sing the line "buy me some peanuts". Instead she replaced the word "peanuts" with anything she could think of. Sometimes it wasn't even food. A few of the better versions (and, yes, that's versions, meaning she sang it repeatedly) were "buy me some muffins" and "buy me vanilla." Except she can't pronounce vanilla. It comes out as banilla. As in: "Buy me banilla and cracker jack."
I have no idea how the game went or who won or anything like that. But I now have a very long list of things my daughter likes better than peanuts. And I can hear her little voice shouting "charge" at inopportune moments.
At times motherhood is highly entertaining.
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guest post by Sarah M. Eden
