My Foul Ball

As I have mentioned before, Chris will occasionally help a friend of ours with his fireworks shows. Most often, it's the fireworks at the Slat Lake Bees baseball games.

Last Saturday, Chris was only helping with the actual show (fire control) and clean-up afterward, so the kids and I went along just for fun. Sweet deal--hang out with Chris and watch a ball game (or at least pretend...we didn't actually care...) until the very end of the game. Sit in the stands with just the kids and me for the last inning, watch the fireworks, and go home. No problem.

Part one worked great. The girls had all kinds of fun running up and down the hill.


We shared some snacks.



And Ben took a nice little nap.


Good times.


Part two, however, failed. Miserably.

By the time we cleared out of the grassy area (because of the coming fireworks show) and settled in to the stands, we were all wearing down. The girls were tired and bored and hungry. I was tired and bored and hungry. And I assume Ben was tired and bored and hungry, too, because he was anything but content. As any mother of small children will attest, this was a very bad combination.

So, there we are. Sitting on the end of a row in the stands, Ben screaming in the ring sling, Jane doing anything she possibly can to run away from me, Megan eating laffy taffy candy she peeled off the ground. I gave her a pacifier just to get her to stop doing that, but she threw it on the ground repeatedly and put it right back in her mouth. So disgusting. Let me just say that a baseball game is not the best place to take three very small children by yourself...it wasn't going well.

And then I got hit by a foul ball.

Yes, you read that correctly. I looked up just in time to see the ball coming straight at us. My only instinct was to wrap my arms around Ben, and I only barely had time to do that before that ball made serious contact with my right knee.

Ouch. To put it mildly. In my head, it was quite a bit louder and may have included a few additional choice words. But only in my head. As far as anyone around me let on, they all assumed it had grazed Megan's arm. No one said a word about me.

Worst part? The ball rolled away and some lady down the row in front of us caught it. All that, and I didn't even get to keep the ball.

I told Chris and he reported it to the medics (without my knowledge, incidentally) who brought me an ice pack. I'll let you guess how long it managed to stay on my knee, considering the aforementioned child situation.

To add insult to injury, a storm blew in and the wind picked up quite a bit. We had to sit for a good half hour after the game ended (as if the game counted for anything) before they even did the fireworks. Several people around me got up and left, apologizing all the way. Apparently my stressful situation was obvious...but they still left. Sigh.

Luckily, we did get to see the fireworks. I was worried that after all that, they would be cancelled altogether. Thankfully, the show did go on, and it was a definite redeeming point to the whole adventure. It was a very good show. Good job, Wendi and Tony! And Chris, too.


I will say, I am extremely grateful that the ball didn't hit any of my kids. Ben was on my chest, Megan was standing between my knees, Jane was standing right next to me. The ball went in the only possible open spot between them all to hit me. If it had to hit someone, I'm glad it was me and not them.

Here is my knee three days later. The swelling has gone down significantly. Hopefully in another day or two I'll be able to walk up and down stairs again.


In the meantime, I'm not sure I'll be attending any more baseball games. Or if I do, we'll find a babysitter first.