Confessions of a Mom.: Ringing in 2011 with hockey and a baby race!

Happy 2011 everyone!

I can not believe how fast this past year has gone! And I can only imagine what this next year has in store! Last year we rung in the new year quietly here at home as I was full of baby and about ready to pop and could not stay awake to save my life. This year, however, we celebrated with the Manchester Monarchs and the Great Baby Race!

The great baby race is something that the Monarchs do every year at their annual new years eve hockey game (who knew!) It was a crawling race, the babies would be disqualified for standing or walking/running. Oh, and a special thanks to Michelle, who pointed us to the WMUR link and sign up form for this, we never would have known about it otherwise!

So, needless to say, Joshua got in! There were seven other little ones "racing" for prizes. Top three finishers got great prizes from Tiny Totland which is down in the mills in Manchester. There was a solid wood toy box, a Wooden rocking horse, and a wooden rocking chair. And the winners got their pick in the order they placed.

Joshua was in surprisingly good spirits since he hadn't napped well during the day. I was half expecting a mental breakdown for one of many reasons. 1. We were sitting down for a long period of time (for a ten month old), 2. It was very loud in there, 3. There were strobe lights at times, 4. Mascot, 5. The game start time was 7pm, the race was between the first two periods, and his bedtime is usually between 7:30 and 8. But we brought a lot of snacks for him and his sippy cup (I swear all the kid does is eat some days!) and he did well! He only whimpered a couple of times, not even a real cry.

The Race:

So we met up with the other parents and babies at the predetermined meeting spot at the twelve minute mark of the first period and headed down to a room to wait to be brought out onto the ice. We were given the rules, and all the babies were given little kid sized Monarchs jerseys with their "lane number" on the back. Joshua was number 3.

They let us out onto the ice and introduced all of the babies in order on the jumbo-tron and we all lined up. One parent was on one end of the carpet with the little ones in arm, and the other parents was at the other end with their baby's favorite toy, snack, or whatever they wanted to bring to try to get that baby to crawl at maximum speed to the them.

On the "GO!," Joshua took off with only one other baby in front of him, he was doing good! Then, he spotted the baby ahead of him (who was 17 months-old by the way . . . 'nuff said *ahem* cheaters *ahem* (I kid) ) so Joshua started crawling across the mat diagonally after him. And of course, right in the middle of the mat was a little piece of dirt, or a twig, something, and Joshua spotted it and decided he should taste it, luckily one of the staff heard me shouting to get it away from him and took it away before I had to. He was not pleased with that and proceeded to sit in the middle of the mat and cry for a few seconds on his knees.

Because it was so loud in there, he couldn't hear me shouting, and was too distracted with everything else to be able to pick me out across the mat. One of the other sets of parents had brought a shiny silver ball with a bell in it for their baby (who was not crawling at all.) So they tried rolling the ball back and forth to catch his eye, and it caught Joshua's instead. Once he saw it go across he went after it and eventually saw me and his puff snacks and came crawl-running over for a second place win!

He picked himself out the toy box, he already had one of each of the prizes, but the toy box we figured would be handy because we could keep one in the living room where we are most of the time while the other stays in his bedroom.

After the game:

A bunch of the other people who came to cheer Joshua on came back to our house after for Chinese and drinks while counting down to the new year. Totally off topic, BUT, I got the best fortune EVER... and I quote, "Good clothes open many doors. Go Shopping." I think it's my favorite of all time!

So all-in-all we had a very exciting and fun night and were very happy to share it with some of our favorite people! Below I posted a you tube video someone (no one we know) took of the baby race... Joshua's the one who sits in the middle. Of course. and some photos people took for us. Enjoy! And happy new year everyone, bring it on 2011!