The First of Many

Anyone that knows us knows that we are HUGE Vikings fans. I guess I wouldn't even say we are fans...we are obsessive...like the sports version of "Hand that Rocks the Cradle"...without the stealing of the family thing. Stalker-ish, some would say. So it would only makes sense that we would be trying to force the team upon our first-born child. FYI...the same goes for the Twins and for me, the Lakers, so this could be a recurring theme.

Part of the obsession is going to games. During the regular season, we get up early and tailgate the entire morning until the game starts. In fact, I get up earlier on Sundays to tailgate than I do on workdays. Tailgating is one of the few things in this world that can get me up before 8am.

Anyway, the point of the rambling, is that we decided to drag our 8-week old to the Vikings preseason game this week. We need her to understand early on the importance of the 4th preseason game for an NFL team. That is where you build the depth of your team. So we needed her to see the Darius Reynaud's and Letroy Guion's of the world try to make their mark and stick with the team. Never too early to teach a lesson about hardwork and perseverence.

Now taking an 8-week old to a building with 50,000 screaming people is a little scary, so we prepared in advance...we bought some airport-runway-style headphones to cut out the noise. Let me tell you...I've seen people put kids in some pretty funny-looking gear, but these take the cake. Huge, protruding, hot-pink headphones. And it turns out she likes them:

No screaming or anything! What a trooper!

We spent the entire 2nd quarter and halftime just laughing, smiling and chattering away between the 3 of us. Incidentally, that behavior is similar to how Kevin and I spent Vikings game pre-baby....minus the baby and the laughing and the smiling and the chattering with a little more drinking, swearing and yelling.

Turns out Lindsay wasn't quite as interested in the play of the potential 3rd string safeties and offensive lineman as us....this is her in the 3rd quarter:

Not quite the attention to team depth that we had hoped she'd have. Overall, however, I'd say she did quite well! And, she was quite the attraction...people seemed pretty interested in the pretty, young gal in the Baby Bjorn with the Vikes gear and hot-pink headphones.

I will say that she picked a good game to go to...a great initiation to the eternal disappointment that comes along with being a Vikes fan. An end of game loss featuring a fluke punt return for a TD by the Cowboys and a last second failure by the Vikes offense to score in the redzone. Don't worry -- we consoled her by explaining it was only a preseason game and it doesn't matter. But we did impress upon her the need to be prepared for a lifetime of similar defeats in games big and small when it comes to the Vikings.

But for the time being, we'll consider it a successful outing for the Best family. We had a great time and I'm sure this picture will be taken over and over again in our lifetime...only with a bigger Lindsay each time it is taken.