Mother/Son Road Trip

On Monday, the Squash and I took our 1st ever Mother/Son road trip. We headed east for St. Louis after dropping the little ones off at school. We stopped at gas stations and I let him get Skittles at 10 AM. We stopped in Columbia (where I lived from ages 3-7) and I showed him my old house, my old elementary school, the former pond across the street from my house (which is now a big pile of dirt), and the University of Missouri (he was mostly interested in the fraternity houses!). We ate lunch at Cracker Barrel.

Finally, we got to St. Louis, about 7 hours after we started. After checking into our hotel, we walked around the Arch and scoped out the (near-flood-stage) Mississippi River. Then we walked over to Busch Stadium for the main event: Phillies/Cardinals.

We were there 2 hours early so that we could catch batting practice. We watched the pitchers (his favorite players) warm up. They played catch with each other. We watched their every move. I took a lot of pictures. And then, the greatest moment in seven-year-old history EVER...one of the Phillies pitchers tossed a ball to my little guy AND HE CAUGHT IT (in his glove). He could have left right then.

But we didn't. We stayed for all 9 innings. We ate hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts AND Dippin Dots (Ice cream of the future...since 1988!). Even though the Phils lost, it was still The Greatest Night Ever. We were back at the hotel around 10 PM.

The next morning, we woke up and drove home. The little guy has not set his precious baseball down since. He loves the fact that it was ACTUALLY USED for warmups and it even has some dirt on it to prove that fact.

Here's my big boy watching his team in action: