This post is sponsored by Natrel Baboo. Thank you, Baboo!
The t-ball season is on. You know what that means.
It means untold hours upon hours of hanging out at the t-ball diamonds and the practice fields with two other kids in tow. It means that the most meaningful summertime memories my toddler is going to have won’t be of sitting in the sandbox with mom, splashing around in the wading pool, making chalk art on the patio stones, blowing bubbles or making daisy chains. We’ll do that stuff too, a little bit, but mostly we’ll be hanging out with the t-ball players.
It’s not all bad.
The best memories are the ones you make yourself, after all. (At least that’s what those of us who can’t afford a trip to Disney tell ourselves.) There’s something about going back to the same spots week after week and year after year that makes them special. The girls will spend their evenings walking along the short brick wall behind the t-ball diamond, climbing up and down the bleachers, playing tag and picking dandelions with the other little kids. Those special summertime memories born of lazy days at the cottage can happen anywhere. For us, they’ll happen in the shadow of the backstop behind home plate.
It’s still a lot of baseball though. One practice and one game per week already feels like a lot when you have to entertain a preschooler and a baby. But this summer my baby is a toddler and my preschooler is a kindergartner — a kindergartner who is going to be playing blast ball (an even more junior level version of t-ball) one evening a week herself.
There tends to be a lot of pizza involved. There’s pizza and hot dogs and fries and jumbo freezies from the ballpark clubhouse. There’s whatever I can grab from home on the go that might impart some measure of nutritional value. “Get your uniform on,” I’ll be calling up the stairs while I pick up the toddler just seconds before she empties out the organic waste bin all over the kitchen floor. I’ll be filling up water bottles and tossing baby carrots and berries and crackers in a bag. And this summer, having just weaned the 20-month-old, I will be sure to keep some of the juice box-like tetra packs of Natrel Baboo — a transition milk especially designed for toddlers aged 12 to 24 months — on hand.
Falling back on convenience products that have all your nutritional bases covered for you while you cheer on your own little base runner is what summer’s all about, after all. At least that’s what those of us without a live-in cook tell ourselves.
Disclosure: I am part of the Natrel Baboo Blogger Campaign with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.
