Fort Wayne Mad Antz Basketball

Nate's company sponsored the Fort Wayne Basketball team, the Mad Antz, again this year. By so doing, he gets season tickets. So we go to lots of basketball games. Sometimes he will take customers, and sometimes we will just go as a family! It is super fun! Cooper, I can honestly say, is obsessed with the Mad Ant mascot and the basketball team. They give out free bangers (those long balloon like things) and you bang two of them together to make a loud banging noise. He has mastered that skill and brings them home and never stops banging them together. If we try to take a banger out of his hands, he has a complete fit. If the banger starts to lose air, he also has a complete fit exclaiming that it is "broken." He sleeps with a stuffed animal Mad Ant in his crib with him, wears his Mad Ant shirt whenever he possibly can, and can find the Mad Ant logo all over town wherever we go (it is a Fort Wayne team, so the logo can be found a lot around town). He will sit through the game and watch the players, focused pretty much the entire time. He is seriously the Mad Antz' biggest and best fan. This particular night, he had a huge scare from the mascot. The referrees made a call against the Mad Ants, and so the mascot Mad Ant was stomping around making a scene in response to the call (trying to be funny). He took someone's banger and popped it and was just stomping all over the place like he was mad about the call. Well, all of a sudden, here he comes and he came right over to our platform box where Cooper was standing just maybe 2 feet away and stomped on our platform so loud that it scared Cooper to death. He was terrified and started screaming and crying. The Mad Ant was not paying attention enough to who was around while he was making his scene, and little did he know that he had terrified his biggest and best fan! Thank goodness he didn't take or pop Cooper's banger, or that would have been the end of the world for poor Cooper! Everyone around saw the Mad Ant do this and saw poor Cooper crying, so the Mad Ant came over and tried to make it up to Cooper with a hug and high five, but Cooper would NOT have it. I don't know if that Mad Ant will ever be forgiven by the little guy!! As much as a fan as he is, he is now terrified of the mascot!

Jaxton loves the games too, but for a very different reason than Cooper. Jaxton just loves being in such a public place, with so many cool things to see and do. He loves the attention he gets from people and loves to meet new people at the games. He loves eating popcorn and snacks and watching the Mad Ant mascot run around the court and the stands. He also enjoys finding the numbers on the players' jerseys. He will choose his favorite number and follow that player and watch him to see if he will catch the ball or make a basket. But his attention span to focus on the game is short lived. He just wants to see everything and be involved in the excitement!

Here is Jaxton standing on the corner of the court during half time while the players are warming up. He loves to take walks and see all thats going on in the stadium.

This was half time. They always have cool things to see at half time, but this is seriously the coolest thing I have ever seen!! There is one real person in the middle of this line of dancers. He has 2 dummies in front of him and 2 dummies behind him. The dummies are connected to a pole at their wrists and their knees and their ankles. The real person in the middle is holding on to the poles with his hands, and it is connected to his knees and ankles too. So, whatever move he does, all the dummies do too! They were in perfect unison! It totally looked real! Never seen anything like it before!

Jaxton won the heart of one of the Mad Antz cheerleaders. Every time we have brought the boys to the game, she has made friends with Jaxton. Of course Jaxton loves the attention. He calls her "my girl" and will look for her when the cheerleaders dance. It was 80's night this night, so she is all decked out in 80's wear. But she asked Jaxton if he would come dance with her to the YMCA during a quarter break. He was ecstatic! So here they are dancing out on the court. What fun!!

Great family fun!!!