Monday, February 8, 2010

The Better Fan

It was quite the Sporty weekend for us with a Butler Basketball game on Saturday night, and the COLTS in the Superbowl on Sunday.

Last night, we were telling our BU friends how baby boy did at his first BU game. I was telling them about this crazy mother on the court afterwards.....

There's kind of an unspoken tradition for kids, after the game is done, and the band is all done playing, and the fieldhouse is emptying out, the kids go down to the basketball court and Play. Some bring balls, some just run, lots of kids, lots of cuteness. Well, while we were sitting in the stands, the Cheerleaders were tossing out tiny Butler Basketballs. We didn't catch any, but later in the game, a nice lady behind us handed us a Basketball. For Christopher. He must just bring out the sweetness in people I thought. Chris was thrilled. He spent the entire second half of the game asking, "All Done?" He wanted to go down and play on the court with his tiny Butler Basketball. (Now it's been a year since we last did this, how awesome is that boy's memory!) So after the game, Chris went down and played ball on the court. You can see how he's still one of the tiniest kids out there, instead of THE Tiniest, he's slowly upgrading to one of the tiniest.



His idea of playing ball was to Throw it and go chasing it around as it rolled all over the floor. Now I knew these balls are a Hot Commodity, so I kept a close eye on the ball and on Chris when he kicked it while Eric went for the car. Just as we were fixing to go, a kid came up to me as I stopped the rolling ball with my toe, "That's mine." he says.
No. I told him, it's His, I've been watching him roll it and chase it. Just as Chris catches up, so the kid went away, and I thought that was the end of it. I'm telling you these kids are Vicious! Some watch out to make sure they aren't going to Take Out a little kid like Chris, but a lot of them don't and when they see a ball rolling off on its own, they all look up and around to see if someone is watching, and I HAD to be. More than once I would go up to some young boy and say THANK YOU for Finding his ball, just about the time Chris caught up. Even though most of the time, they weren't 'finding it for Chris' they were going to snag it. Well, as I'm trying to convince Chris it's time to go, which of course he does NOT want to do, this Mom comes up to me, and says that's my son's ball. I'm like, Uh NO It's NOT. It's My son's. She says, well I thought I saw him kick it under that chair.
A valid posibility, he did kick it over there at one point, but he has been kicking all over the place and he did go in the direction she indicated, and another (Nice) kid picked it up and gave it back to him. And I was not going to go chasing to see if we had mistakenly picked the wrong ball up, let alone to see if 'his' was still there. Does that make me a horrible Mom? Denying some other kid a Butler Basketball just to keep my own child happy? Am I horrible for willing to Snark at some other Mom over a Butler Basketball?
Well, then I am. I'm not the Better Mom. So I stashed it in the Diaper bag, not willing to play anymore in the event that other mama might try to snag it away from Chris the first chance they got. So we went home...

Back to last night, as I'm relaying this story about this nutbar Mama fan, Eric tells me where Chris got the ball.

You know? He says, he got that ball from the Wright State fans behind us. That's nice, I thought, plus what are they going to do with a Butler Basketball. No, he says, I don't think they caught it when the cheerleaders were throwing. I think someone was Throwing it at them.

Not Cool.

Some Butler fans were throwing things at the opposing team's fans? Not Cool at all. What's happening to our Butler Fans? And That those opposing fans would take the high road and give that little Butler Basketball to a small boy who's just discovering what's it's like to be a Butler basketball fanatic. Well, it made me a bit teary eyed and a bit ashamed of myself. We're supposed to be the Fabulous Hinkle Fieldhouse, Home Field to Champions! That was very un-championlike behavior.

I vow to be more Butler Championlike. Next time, I'll give the other kid the ball. I need to be the Better Fan.

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