Maybe we really do have a natural athlete in the family?!

Last night I took Mason to the Mott Tigers Event: Keeping Kids in the Game. It was a benefit for children's health and youth baseball. It was a bittersweet event for me because this was the first indication that I really had to accept that we are a "Mott Family". Even though Ava is not terribly sick and doesn't have long stays at Mott, I can no longer deny the fact that Ava sees 7 doctors and 2 therapists (as of my last count) and is a "regular" patient of Mott. Mott does an exceptional job of including the whole family by providing fun opportunities for everyone. Since Ava is too young to enjoy a baseball event and Maddi is a little too young to stay up until midnight, Mason and I got to enjoy some mom and Mason time.

It was important to me that Mason understood why he got to go to this fun event. I told him on our way there that the nice people at Mott know that when Ava is sick or needs to see a doctor it means that Mom and Dad sometimes have to be away from him and Maddi. This is their way of helping Mom spend some special time alone with him and later we will spend some special time alone with Maddi. I don't think he cared about was as touched by the reason behind this opportunity as I was!

Here is our evening in photos:

Getting his baseball autographed by a player. Mason got 3 autographs and was shaking with fear when I asked him to take a picture with the player...hence, just this one picture of a player by himself (someone tell us who this is - we need to become more knowledgable fans!):

Next Mason got a balloon animal. He chose a Lion at the last minute and didn't smile the entire time his animal was being made, but he did watch the process very intently:

He LOVED the hitting center where air held a ball in place and he used his new Tigers bat - he hit every ball on the first swing most of the time (thus the natural athlete title?!):

We toured the dugout:

And the locker room:

Then we went out onto the field to hit some balls. I must have thrown the ball 50 times (I only hit him in the head twice - good thing it was a foam ball):

We had dessert and watched the fireworks:

At the end of the night when we were walking back to the car, I asked Mason if he had fun. He told me, "yes, this was better than a baseball game, Mom". I agree buddy!

Thank you to all of the Mott staff who helped plan this event. We didn't even get a chance to do everything - there was a lot of fun stuff. Next year we hope that Bill, Maddi and Ava can enjoy this opportunity as well. There are more pictures in our slideshow to the right!

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