last minute baseball dinner and my sweet daughter

My husband has been a Cincinnati Reds fan his whole life.  He used to stay awake at night as a child listening to the games on the radio.  THE RADIO.  It's hard enough for me to stay interested watching it live or on tv, but I can not even imagine trying to follow it on the radio. (Actually, I have tried during car rides with him. I fall asleep.)  Every year since I met him he's said "This is their year, I can feel it" and then they have an awful year and he says "next year they're going to be great!" I guess you could call him a fan.  This year they did actually have a great year and made it to the playoffs. (We won't mention what happened in the playoffs as the wound is still tender.)

Anyway, last tuesday the Reds were coming back to Cincinnati after winning the first two games in the series against the Giants.  Jason was really excited to watch the games with the kids, since it was going to be at a reasonable time for everyone.  Tuesday morning, as he was walking out the door for work, he said "so, are we having a Red's baseball party tonight for the game?"  Uhhh, maybe? I guess so? I had other things to do, like homeschool, but the kids were really excited because daddy said we were going to have a baseball party.

I looked for a bit on pinterest and saw lots of cute baseball cookies and cakes and decorations.  Sometimes pinterest can be more discouraging than helpful, ya know?  I decided I just didn't have time to do anything fancy.  I ended up buying powdered donut holes, sticking them on a skewer, and using that red gel in a tube to draw on baseball lines.  I didn't even do that good of a job.  I threw some bags of peanuts in a container and put it on the table, served hot dogs and chips, and called it good.  I happened to have red colored dishes, so at least that seemed a bit festive.  Personally, I thought the whole set up a pretty weak offering and not my best work.

But then my daughter came into the room, saw the baseballs and said "Wow mom. Those are awesome.  Now I KNOW my mom is the best mom in the world."

And I stopped feeling bad about myself and was reminded that kids just don't care.  They don't care how great an artist you are or if your creations are magazine worthy.  They are just thrilled when a little imagination is used to make a normal event just a bit special.  It doesn't have to be expensive or huge, or take a lot of planning time.  Just a little thing like donut holes on a stick can turn a boring dinner into a family memory.