sometimes in life when we attempt to "dig a little deeper" we strike gold. other times, we strike....
dirt.
mud, even.
actually....georgia red clay, to be exact.
jeffrey plays softball on tuesday nights and we usually support him by staying at home - ha! he's played for a few seasons now and we have yet to go to a game. in my defense, most of his games are either too early requiring jeffrey to go straight from work without coming home first OR they're too late resulting in a missed bedtime for two little girls. but, the stars aligned last night and his game was at 6:45. instead of just hanging out at home with the girls and eating supper without him, i decided to seize the moment to "dig a little deeper" and take everyone to the softball game!
i had visions of my girls playing on the playground at the ballpark while taking breaks to cheer for their daddy while he was at bat. i thought they would love running around the fields and stopping for a drink under the pavilions. apparently, i live in a dream world. ;-)
to start off with, i forgot that the location of his softball games had changed. it's now much further from home. oops. add in the fact that we had to leave around 5:45 to be there on time which meant that we were in the car right smack in the middle of supper time. oops x 2.
in my excitement to have a family night at the ballpark, i failed to remember that it had been raining earlier in the day. oops. which also meant that i failed to change the girls into "play clothes." oops x2
we arrived at the park and jeffrey took off for the field to start his warmup. i waved him off, assuring him that we were fine. we'd go sit at the picnic tables while the girls ate their gourmet happy meals and then alternate between playing and cheering for the next hour. oops x 100000 :)
what took place was quite the opposite, actually. the girls did not want to eat. they only wanted to play. which meant our supper was completely wasted since i couldn't leave it out on a random picnic table and i sure wasn't going to cart around a chocolate milk, an apple juice, and a happy meal box (and laney's jacket, libbi's toy, my keys, and our bag) all while chasing two girls around the park. not happening. so, into the trash it went.
libbi was content to play and with a few minor temptations (read: small puddles) she mostly stayed out of the mud and water. laney....not so much. ALL she wanted to do was get in the mud. and y'all, there was georgia red clay all over that park. if you're not familiar with red clay. it's bad. and it stains.
after 15 minutes of trying to keep laney out of the mud, in between trying to push libbi on the swings (and keep both of them off the monkey bars) i was completely exhausted! i talked libbi into going to watch a little bit of jeffrey's game. laney was not so agreeable. so i carried her (kicking and screaming) while libbi walked down to the softball fields.
jeffrey was not at bat. not even close. i strongly considered leaving both girls in the dugout and making a run for it, but i knew that would be frowned upon. :)
so i drug laney (kicking and screaming) back up the hill and held libbi's hand (as she was whining and whimpering) all the way back to our car.
once we were loaded up into the car (sweating, screaming, crying, messes that we were) i promptly turned on Monsters, Inc. and cranked up the air conditioning. i drove the girls to the nearest zaxby's, picked up a chocolate chip cookie for laney and a small milkshake for libbi. we drove back to the ballpark, parked the car, and had our own little drive-in experience. (did i mention it was only 7:00?!) we stayed that way until jeffrey's game was over and he met us back at the car around 8:00.
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| {we were parked in the parking lot. not moving while i took these pics...} |
we didn't see him hit. we didn't see him field. i don't even know if they won or lost. what i do know is that things don't always work out as we plan or as we envision that they will. but it's up to us to do the best we can with what we've got. and if i need a reminder of this lesson, all i have to do is look at those two cute little outfits with nice georgia red clay stains on them. ;-)
"people might make many plans, but what the Lord says is what will happen."
proverbs 19:21
