Thanks to our friends Marcela and Brian, we got to go to the Angels vs. Red Sox game on Thursday night. We weren't sure how it would go with Abby, since all she wants these days is to crawl and walk, but they were bringing their 10-month-old, Brendan, so I figured Marcela and I could take the kids for a walk if they started getting antsy.
We got there a few minutes after it had started (thanks, traffic) and Abby slept the entire way there, so that was fantastic timing. She was in a good mood going in, and for the first two innings she did great on my lap, standing and bouncing and being entertained by the woman behind us and by Brendan. Then the foul ball came.
We were in row G behind third base--prime broken bat and foul ball territory. Dan and Brian sat on our right so they could shield us from anything that happened to come winging our way. Well, a foul ball got smacked straight to our section, and when I realized it was actually coming really close, I hunched over Abby and tried to cover her head with my arm. The ball went about two rows in front of us, but someone behind us tried to go for it anyway (why?!?!) and landed ON ME. I got smashed into the top edge of the chair's back and my cheek got smooshed, too. I felt like Id have a bruise under my eye, but thankfully I didn't, although I do have a knot on my back from the chair back. And even though Abby didn't get touched, she did get a little squashed when I got squashed, and she was totally traumatized.
She sobbed for quite a while, and then, when she settled down, it was like she was in shock. Dan held her for 15 minutes and she never moved; just had her face pressed against his chest, staring at nothing, looking stunned. After a while I took her and put her in my new (and totally awesome) sling, and she did the same thing: just sat there, huddled against me, not moving.
After a while, around inning 6, I nursed her (my first nursing in public experience, and no one around us was the wiser, thanks to that sling!), because I figured she had to be hungry (hadn't eaten since before we left!) and maybe that would snap her out of it. And it did! They played "Feel Good, Inc." which is a song by The Gorillaz, and Dan and I sing the little intro to her sometimes and it makes her laugh, and when I sang along she smiled. I pulled her out of the sling and stood her up and it was like she'd just woken up: looking around, checking things out as though seeing them for the first time. Poor baby girl. Dan and I felt awful that she was so freaked out. But even after all that she didn't get wigged out by the cheering and yelling and gasping of the 43,000+ crowd. Personal growth! Yay Abby!
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