Thank you weather.com for helping my make my decision for tonight’s beverage of choice! The fine folks at Thomas Liquor were also of great assistance.

New Age win

Here it is. Glass of ice, fill with new age wine which has some sparkle…some spritz to it, squeeze half a lime, sit back… ahhhhhhhhhh!

Ever since the temp has dropped here, I’ve wanted to share my love of the north star state with ‘little’.  I really want to go skating with him.  It’s perfect because I’m not very good at skating, I started a couple years ago, so we can learn this wonderful sport of hockey together.  He wants to go skiing, but I think that may get a little expensive to get into.  There really just isn’t anything like being able to defeat the Minnesotan negative degree weather by skating around outside.  Especially when it’s so cold outside and you’re skating so hard all you need is a sweater.  I love it and I can’t wait to bring ‘little’.

In order to get him excited about trying this new activity I brought him to the US Pond Hockey Championship over on Lake Nakomis in Minneapolis.  It was about 10-15 degrees out so not to bad.  We watched the 40+championship game.  They were pretty rowdy (probably more rowdy than any 40 year old should be) and ‘little’ really liked that.  Our adventure there elicited the exact response that I was looking for. He’s really excited to try skating. I hope he has the perseverance and interest to keep it up. I really want to share my new found love for this sport with him.

NHL Bound

We stayed at the pond hockey for about 45 minutes, but ‘little’ doesn’t own any boots and his feet were freezing. We took off a little earlier than I wanted but it ended up being great.  On our way home we passed by the airport. ‘little’ seemed pretty excited about the planes.  I remembered when I was a young lad, my old man used to stop on the frontage road so we could watch them take off.  Turns out ‘little’ digs that. There’s a state park right there that we parked at and sat on the car to watch the plane fly by.  It was a good time for me to grill him on school, family, friends… He never divulges any deep info (he’s 11) but I just want him to know that he can always come to me with stuff if he wants.

Plane Spotting

He hadn’t eaten breakfast so I brought him to his first greasy spoon diner experience. We went to Mickey’s and had the most delicious pancakes ever.  His eyes got about as big as the pancakes when he had his first bite! I mean, all they do is basically fry them in a pound of butter. SOO GOOD!!  I always try to push him to say thank you and please when we’re out.  He starting to do it on his own now, so he asked me if he could thanks tothe cook (who was making the food right in front of us) and I said sure.  Say, “Compliments to the Chef” when she comes by.  He did.  She was confused and it didn’t really go over very well.  ha ha, pretty hilarious though. Oh, it’s the little things in life that’s gets us by wouldn’t you say??

The Mickey's Diner Experience!

Yet again, another exciting, eventful outing with ‘little’. I’m just trying to remember what my life was like with out him…

I quick drove over to ‘little’s’ house after work and was somewhat disappointed that neither he nor mom were there at the appointed time.  I talked to a fellow at the house and he was making an honest effort to get a hold of them to figure out where they were.  After about 10 minutes on their front porch ‘little’ pulled up to the house with his aunt and we took off right away.  He seemed pretty excited.  I’ve never been in charge of someone his age (being the youngest of four in my family) and I instinctually grabbed for his hand as we walked across the street.  I don’t know what brought me to do it, but that physical contact wasn’t alarming at all for ‘little’.  I didn’t even ask him.  He really has no idea who I am except for the half hour we spent a few days ago with mom and match coordinator at their house.  I think that if a stranger had grabbed my hand when I was his age I would have been a bit frusterated.

Because of BBBS rules ‘littlehas to ride in the back seat of the car so he hopped right in, threw on his seat belt without me asking and we were on our way.  He wanted to listen to the radio so I flipped in a Citizen Cope CD (the closest thing I have to rap or R&B, his favorite) and we drove on.  He was kind of diggin the music.

We didn’t stop talking the whole way to the Dome.  It’s incredible how easy going he is.  He’s a very curious boy and doesn’t hold back on any questions or comments.  I’m not sure how normal this is because I’ve never really hung out with a 10 year old kid on an extended basis before.  I have no idea but I absolutely love it.  He seems so incredibly innocent.  For example, while we were driving, ‘little’ looked at me through the rearview mirror and said “Joseph, are you mixed”’.  I was pretty sure I knew what he was asking but I asked him to explain what he meant by ‘mixed, and he replied “you know half black, half… something else??”

“Nope ‘little’, I’m all white. How about you, you mixed??”

“No, I’m black.”

While we were talking he mentioned that most his mates at school were either latino or african american and that there really weren’t that many caucasion people that influenced his life. 

We got to the stadium and had to walk about a half mile, there really isn’t much good parking around there.  little’s wearing a walking cast because he broke his ankle a month ago.  I asked him if he wanted a piggie back ride and he was delighted to take me up on my offer… turns out 80lbs get’s heavy after a quarter mile!! ‘We’ labored on.

I had brought t-shirts and markers so we found a bench outside and went to town on our designs.  We both put the TC symbol on the front, just like the players, then I added ‘Big’ and 1 to the back of mine, and he put ‘little’ and 1/2 on his. I was glad that he was so gung ho about the shirts.  He loved filling in all the letters and making sure everything was centered.  They certainly were no works of art but this really got him excited to head inside.  It was pretty hilarious.

The Artist!

A woman that was sitting near us was commenting on how great of an artist he was, he seemed proud. The woman, it turned out, had cerebral palsy.  She saw that I had my camera and offered to take  pictures of us while we were working away.  When ‘little’ saw that her hand was a little cramped up he asked, without hesitation, “what’s up with your hand?” His question was completely straightforward and curios.  He honestly saw something that set this woman apart and wanted to know what the difference was.

The woman quickly responded, obviously a bit shaken that he was so forward with his question.  She explained that she had CP, and had had it since she was a child, but that she was much higher functioning than many others.  She loosened up pretty quick and said that she was happy to explain to ‘little’ what set her apart from other people.  It was interesting to see how he disarmed her so quickly but at the same time softened her up which allowed her to speak so freely and turn a potentially awkward situation into a learning experience for us all! Simply amazing how ‘little’ surprises me around every turn… and we’re not even into the game yet!

We went into the game and found our seats, 15 rows behind home plate!! ‘Little’ seemed unimpressed, or indifferent I suppose, would be a better word there.  I wonder what he would think about sitting out on the home run porch (way out in the outfield).  We got some cotton candy, and ‘little’ cordially offered everyone around us a handful.  They all declined but gave me a quick passing smile of surprise and delight!

The game went just fine.  He wasn’t super familiar with all the rules so as the game was going on I explained them as best I could, which is harder than one would think, conveying these rules to a 10 year old. 

One thing that he did enjoy about the game was the heckling of the opposing players.  The interesting thing was though, that every time he would say anything out loud, he would look at me out of the corner of his eyes to see if I approved or not.  He certainly has respect for me as an adult, a mentor, and I couldn’t be happier about that.  There was one point where he said something that certainly wasn’t a four letter word but was a bit more crude than what was appropriate and I told him ‘no’.  He sort of hung his head and was quiet… for the next 30 seconds, and than got right back into it, appropriately of course. He’s such a good kid!  I certainly don’t want to be a disciplinarian in his life, because I don’t think that’s what he needs, and I don’t think that’s what I’m called to do, but I do have to take a stance and set my boundaries.  This way I believe our relationship will be so much stronger.  OH MY GOSH I SOUNDS LIKE MY PARENTS HA HA HA!!!

I’ve been going to twins games for dang near 15 years now, and never has a foul ball come with in 2 sections of me, nor have I gotten on the big screen.  In the8th inning a ball landed three rows behind us, and between the top and bottom of the inning ‘little’, along with my torso, got on the big screen.  If this kid ever goes back to a game, I can only imagine he’s going to find it a little lame.  ‘Little’ was pretty excited about all that but nothing beat the end of the game.

Twins Game

The Blue Jays tied it up in the 7th and no offense came of it until the end of the 11th when Joe Crede knocked in Justin Morneau for a walk off double!! It was ear piercingly ecstatic inside the dome!  Everyone went nuts and ‘little’ without really knowing what was going on, got all caught up in the hysteria of it all!  We ran over to get some autographs, and saw Justin interviewing on the field but he ducked right into the dug out before we got a chance to get to him.

I gave ‘little’ a piggy back all the way back to the car and we recapped the game the whole way.  The ride home was pretty uneventful on the way home.  He was playing with my camera and giving me play-by-plays of the video he had shot until we pulled up to his house.  At this point he could barely contain himself. When we got in the house he couldn’t decide which part of the night to tell mom and he was fumbling all over the place. He needed to go to the bathroom but was to excited, made it half way, turned back, and grabbed the cotton candy to give to his mom, than ran off.  Mom was excited to see his reaction.

Overall I couldn’t believe how the day went sooo smoothly. Super exciting, full of new fun events, great communication between the two of us as well as with others… I have so much to build upon, and so much to be excited about!!!

As far as future get together, I think we’re going to take it easy for the next few meetings. Maybe we’ll  read a book, play some video games, throw a ball around etc. etc.  I want to get to know him on more of a personal level.

I’ll keep you guys posted! Thanks for reading, I know that was a long one.  I have so much more…