We brought him to the Maroon & White game last spring (it's A&M's annual spring practice) and I thought I'd make it a tradition this year - if you didn't know there is a saying that says doing anything twice in Aggieland makes it tradition.
Since Momma took off for San Antonio on Friday it was a guy's road trip on Saturday morning that started off awfully early. Benjamin and I picked up Grumpa at 7:30am, swung by Shipley's donuts for a top notch breakfast, and pulled into Aggieland just a shade before 9am.We had made arrangements with Uncle Tootles to go to the annual Meet the Team/Autograph session. I was particularly excited because Aggie legend, Dat Nguyen, has joined the defensive coaching staff and his John Hancock was missing from my autograph helmet. As it turned out Tootles couldn't make it due to an upset tummy so Grumpa and I trecked down to the new indoor track facility.
The athletic department sets the Autograph session up with four 15 minute sessions where they clear the room between sessions. They sit the players at long tables with the defense on one side of the room and the offense at the other side and the coaches at the far end. We got in line to meet Dat first and literally got to the front of the line as they were counting down the final seconds of the first session. We went back outside, got back in line and got into the second session where Benjamin got to meet some legends of the future.
Christine Michael was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year last season and is expected to leave campus as one of the best running backs of the last 20 years. As it turns out, he is one of the nicest kids around as well. Benjamin walked up to the table with me, his nose just sticking over the top of the table and C-Mike asked "Who's this little guy?" I told him that his name was Benjamin and C-Mike stuck out his hand and we got Benjamin to shake his finger.
The next table we went to Benjamin brought the small poster they handed out for the players to sign and handed it to walk-on FB Anthony Vila, WR EZ Nwachukwu, and WR/QB Ryan Tannehill. Grumpa said that Benjamin would be class of '30 and the guys laughed and said that made them feel old, to which I responded, "Nah, you're not old until it's your kid."
The final table we went to was that of All-American LBer, Von Miller. Benjamin had just about enough of autograph session at this point and decided to take a seat on the floor while we were moving up in line but he came out of it a little bit when we got to the front and Grumpa told Von that Benjamin was going to be coming after him.
After that point we loaded Benjamin back up in his stroller and headed back to the house where we wanted to get him to take a nap for a little bit and then go to lunch before the game. We called the rest of his male relatives, GrandAggie and Uncle T (Jennifer's father and brother) and tried to set up lunch with them (they were at another function and were going to meet us afterwards) but things didn't work out as Benjamin wouldn't nap and we went ahead to lunch. Benjamin finally decided to fall asleep in his car seat on the way back from lunch. The last thing I wanted to do was wake him up and create a tired, cranky kid just before we went into the stadium so I sat in the truck for 45 minutes to let him sleep before we loaded him up in the stroller and walked down the street to Kyle Field.
We met up with GrandAggie and Uncle T inside the stadium and sat down in the shade of the alumni side of the stadium and enjoyed a nice afternoon with gorgeous weather, an adventurous 18 month old kid, and a sprinkling of Aggie football. I took a bunch of pictures that can be found in the April photo album.
Benjamin LOVED it when we scored because the band would start playing and he would keep beat with his hands along with the drum majors - it was really cute.
After the game we headed back to the house, changed Benjamin's diaper (his mother will be proud to hear that it was the 3rd diaper change in a 6 hour time period), and headed home. I was the only one not to nap on the drive down HW 6 - thankfully.
It is nice being able to take my son to go watch football at Kyle Field under a MUCH more relaxed atmosphere. There is no way I will be taking him to a real game until he can sit and watch the game or at least entertain himself without needing 15 bench seats and 4 other sets of hands to help keep him corralled. I was only able to pay attention to a handful of snaps during the game, which is something that I wouldn't be able to handle if we were at a real game. That is what makes the M&W game the perfect avenue to introduce him to one of my favorite things - Aggie football.
I think we all had a great time and I know we wore out the little guy. Hopefully next year we'll finally have him able to pronounce his "G"s so we can get a "Gig'em" out of him.
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