I remember it like it was yesterday. Tyler and I were in the middle of our second baseball season with our newly blended family, and things were a little crazy. With 7 kids (4 of whom were playing Little League baseball that year), every day was a struggle. It was a good, happy, beautiful struggle; but it was a struggle.
Weeknights we divided and conquered, getting everyone to their different practices and games. Saturdays were awesome because everyone was in the same location and there were only games; no practices.
However, with the number of kids we had playing, there were some Saturdays when we were literally at the baseball field ALLLLLLLLLLLL DAYYYYYYYYYYYY. And being somewhere all day with that many kids means bringing a lot of gear.
Every week I would see families with wagons but I just hadn’t completely warmed up to the idea. I’m not sure why; I guess I felt like that would take it to a whole new level that I wasn’t willing to commit to. Which is SO DUMB because, HELLO!! We had 4 kids playing baseball! I’m not sure how much more committed we could have been! Anyway, I am just weird sometimes.
And then Mother’s Day came…and I was TOTALLY SURPRISED to open my very own baseball wagon! This is a picture of the first day we used it. We were all ecstatic!
We’ve come a long way as far as organization and having the things we have wished we’d had over the years. So I thought I’d share some suggestions of what you may want to consider taking with you to survive gamedays.
**This post contains affiliate links; using my links helps to support my blogging and my family at no extra cost to you.**
After having the wagon for one game, I was sold. Why had I denied myself this necessity for so long?! If you are a parent of a child who plays baseball, just go buy yourself a wagon now! Let’s face it; you’re going to buy one sooner or later…might as well be sooner so you can enjoy it longer!
If I knew then what I know now, I would have gone with the double-decker wagon. Holy cow. This is genius. And if any of you get it, I want to know about it. I am super tempted to sell my current wagon and get this bad boy. Because, DANG! How cool is that?! Anyway, if you want to enjoy this baseball season, get a wagon. If you plan on taking your own chairs that would fit in between the wheels, get the double-decker wagon. Buy now. Thank me later.
We went years without owning a pop-up. I was scared to death of them, and rightfully so. But it got to a point where our very lives were at stake. We could either join the ranks of the pop-up families, or die of heat stroke.
I have a love-hate relationship with pop-ups. I love them when they’re up and I’m basking in the shade. I pretty much hate everything else about them. They’re big, they’re heavy, they’re awkward, and regardless of how easy the pictures on the box make it seem, they are a pain in the butt to put up, but even a bigger pain in the butt to take down.
**Tip: do a practice run AT HOME, with no one else watching. And then do another one. And another one.
You pretty much need someone to pull the wagon and a different person to lug the pop-up to the field. Most of them come with carrying cases with wheels, but be careful with those wheels. Because once they’re busted, your life gets about 1000% harder on those sunny Saturdays because those things are HEAVY.
I feel like I’m not doing a very good job of convincing you of the pop-up idea. It’s just one of those necessary evils. If you aren’t going to get a pop-up, make friends with someone who has one. And girl, you better claim that friend at the FIRST GAME, before someone else steals that shaded friendship status. Because those pop-ups are really only big enough for one friend and a few kids.
If you need to buy yourself a pop-up buddy, bring a tub of licorice, sit your buns right next to a nice, roomy pop-up, and proceed to eat and hand out your Red Vines to your kids as loudly as you can. When the pop-up lady’s kid comes and asks you for a Red Vine, you’re in. From that moment on…half of that shade is yours. That $8 tub of Red Vines just bought you an entire season of shade. Boom.
I held out for years before buying my kids bat bags. Dumb. What was I thinking? Was I waiting for them to grow up so they deserved a bag? Seriously, I can be such an idiot sometimes. I got my girls little bags to put their dance stuff in when they could hardly walk. I give my piano students a bag to put their piano books in. But I didn’t think my kids needed a bat bag to hold all their gear. Total face palm.
After a few YEARS of being stupid, I decided Cody was worthy to receive a bat pack for Christmas. He got a normal-sized one, so this is one he can use forever.
But I still didn’t get it. I hadn’t gotten any of the other kids one. Seriously, why didn’t someone just come up and tell me what an idiot I was?! I think one of my fears was that I would spend a bunch of money on something they would grow out of soon. But the fact is, they can use these longer than their cleats or even their batting helmets, and I didn’t seem to have a problem buying those every year…
It’s true that a brand new T-baller can’t quite carry a normal-sized bat pack very well. I FINALLY bought our first Youth Bat Pack last year. We have been in this game for 8 years, people. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Had I just gotten one for Cody 8 years ago, our lives would have been SO MUCH EASIER, and it would STILL be getting use today. 8 years later!!!
**A note on the Youth Bat Packs: They are smaller than normal bat packs and therefore can’t fit as much. We have this Youth Bat Pack for Briggs and it fits his mitt, batting helmet, water bottle, bat, and hat. It does not fit his cleats. But my kids have always just worn their cleats from home to the field, so that’s not a big deal for us.
Anyway, my point is, get your kid a bat bag. If it kills you to buy a new one, find one on Facebook for cheap if you want to. But get the kid a bag!!
Target has a deal that comes up fairly frequently where if you buy 3 boxes of Band-Aids, you get a free First-Aid case. I have done this several times to make a small First-Aid kit for each of our cars, as well as our Travel Tote First-Aid Kit.
You can even fit all of this in a little pencil box that costs a couple bucks, tops. Just be sure to put a rubber band or two around it, to keep it from popping open and spilling everywhere!
I bought most of the items below in bulk or purchased a money-saving pack to give me extras to put in the First-Aid kits I have in each car as well as our family’s 72-Hour Kit and Travel Tote First-Aid Kits. So if you are going to put together a First-Aid kit for your wagon, consider putting together a few of them at a time.
I love the idea of supporting the league by making purchases from the Snack Shack. However, we’ve got mouths to feed. Baseball is expensive. Not only do you have to pay the registration fees, but those fees usually only cover the shirt and hat, and you are left to still have to purchase pants, socks, belts, cleats, and equipment (batting helmet, bat, mitt, etc).
Having a large family with multiple players, we spend anywhere from 3-8 hours every Saturday at the ball field (plus anywhere from 1 to 3 weeknights). Buying everyone’s meals, snacks, and drinks from the Snack Shack for the whole season would be insane.
We have chosen to allow our kids to take their own money to buy their own junk food from the Snack Shack, but we don’t typically buy anything for them. Every once in a while, we have one of those days where nothing goes as planned and we end up at the field without a dinner. This happens a couple times each season, and we just plan on buying everyone’s food at the field that day. But this is not a regular occurrence.
Instead, we plan ahead and bring our own drinks, snacks, meals, and even candy.
I finally found a good cooler that I love. It is a large, soft cooler, but has a hard bottom. It has a rectangular top, rather than just zipping from one end to the other. You lose SO MUCH SPACE when a cooler does that. This one has as big of a top as the bottom. You can pack a LOT of stuff in this thing. I love it!
I got really sick of using all of the little ice packs from school lunches, especially for weeknight games when we only have about an hour between school and when we need to leave for the baseball field. By that time, the ice packs had been in the kids’ lunchboxes all day, so they often needed a recharge in the freezer.
So I decided to get one SPECIFICALLY for our family cooler. One that wouldn’t fit in the kids’ lunch bags, and therefore would always be in the freezer when I went to pack the cooler. This ice pack (affiliate link) is my favorite one that we own and it stays frozen for days ($29.99 whether on Amazon or YETI.com). It lasts all day on a Saturday when we’re at the field all day, and it is always available for me when I go to pack our cooler for an evening game while the kids are still at school. I stick it at the bottom of our cooler bag and load everything else on top.
I’m not gonna lie. I don’t go to great lengths to get super creative with meals at the ball field. I really only have 2 recommendations, and neither of them are earth-shattering, but I do have a couple of tips to take them from boring to awesome.
1 – Pizza. We are sooooo lucky because we have a Little Caesars about 5 minutes from our Little League field. It’s cheap and it’s my favorite. It’s embarrassing, but I’m just being honest. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but I totally love it. Anyway, we often grab a pizza or two on the way to the field and eat there. On Saturdays when games are spread out, we go grab pizza in between.
**My pizza tip: don’t skip the paper plates and paper towels in the “Every Day” list above. Especially if your player has white pants! Having plates and paper towels helps keep the grease at bay, and also encourages everyone to eat their pizza at a normal pace, rather than feeling like they have to gobble it up because they have no place to set it down.
2 – Sandwiches. This is about as boring as it gets, I know. But! I have a few things I do to spice it up a little bit and make it feel like it came straight from Mr. Pickles (kind of).
If you haven’t noticed, I like Ziploc bags a lot. But sometimes, you just need some shape. I much prefer putting little snacks (like granola bars or cheese and crackers) in hard plastic containers than Ziploc bags. So I found a few old containers that didn’t have lids anymore and put them to good use! This helps keep the snacks contained and organized.
If I am really on my game, I will have each of the kids choose their own snack for the day; if they choose it, they can’t complain about it! I have them load up their own tupperware container with their name on it, which keeps things from getting smashed.
I know it seems like a lot, but it really isn’t as much stuff as you think. I put all the BIG ZIPLOC BAGS (Every Day, Cold Day, Hot Day, Rainy Day) in one cute bigger bag that I’ve had for years (the black and white bag in the picture below). The cooler fits next to that.
Then I put the snack bag, licorice (disguised in the emptied out bucket of baseballs) and little kid chairs on the other side. Remember…our adult chairs are on our backs. But when I am alone, or if the kids are beat, I just stick the chairs on top and sometimes use a bungee cord to hold them all up there. Those are the days I REALLY wish we had the double-decker wagon!
If you want your family to be #SummerReady, take some time to review the extreme heat facts and summer heat safety tips in this post. Stay cool and be safe!
This is by far the coolest gift for baseball players, both young and old. Whether you purchase one box as a gift or a year
I. Love. Baseball. It is the only sport I can watch and really understand; I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the
