Boys

Sometimes my sons make me feel crazy.  We’ve had a bit of attitude going on at our house.  Is there anything more hateful than the small person you birthed and whose bum you wiped and puke you caught in your own bare hands rolling their eyes at you?!?!  I ask you?  What’s a mother to do.  It tempts one to smack them and I am not that kind of mom!  

Today I came downstairs after my shower to a sobbing Bridger.  I have this red chair, see.  It’s my favorite ‘thing.’  I own lots of stuff and am not particularly attached to any of it, but this piece of stuff has rank.  In a discussion of what to sell, give away, or move on to our next destination the one thing that always makes the ‘it goes where I go’ list is my red cowboy chair.  I bought it out of a girl’s garage a few years ago.  Found some fabulous red pleather and some cherry-red paint and had my favorite furniture gurus in Denver make it over.  It is a fabulous piece of furniture, and today my son wrecked it.  Well, not really.  It’s not wrecked.  He just picked a bunch of paint off of the arm of the chair.  There was a tiny bit pealing up and he did what any self-respecting eight year old would do.  He started picking and pulling and messing with it.  I can’t blame him.  It does not make him a horrible person.  I once pulled the brail sticker off the inside of an elevator because it was pulling away and I couldn’t resist peeling it off.  That, I’m pretty sure makes you a horrible person.  But a little paint off a chair?  Even if it’s your mother’s favorite ‘thing’?  It just makes you a point of frustration.  Even that I didn’t let out in front of him.  He was genuinely heart broken and sorry.  So, I couldn’t be angry.  Just really bummed.  Then even more bummed when about two seconds later I found one of my vintage turquoise bracelets had been bent and mangled by the other son who ‘wanted to see how it worked.’

What with the recent snotting and eye-booger sickness, the demanding (as in I want it not now, RIGHT NOW) breastfeeding, the eye rolling, the constant bickering, and the el destructo boyness in general--between you and me I dream of weeks away from my children.  Still sometimes, they do or say or be something that simply melts me, and I am able to regroup and not smack them and even love them an extra lot.  Caid has lost his two front teeth and the lisping and toothless grin are so stinkin’ cute I can’t stand it.  Asher has started giving the most spectacular hugs.  Just wraps his little arms around you and presses his little head against you and mmmmm...it’s so nice!  Then there was the conversation around the dinner table the other night.  One of those moments that reminded me that these little beings around my table are from some other place.  Full of a life and light that is a gift to me and blesses me constantly. 

Bridger started a conversation a few nights ago with “Dad?  If you could raise money for something, what would you raise it for?”  Neither one of us were certain what he meant.  So we asked him what he would raise it for.  “A baseball field.  I’d build one for kids who don’t get to play baseball.  Maybe in Ubie’s [Ubaldo Jimenez--his favorite pitcher from the Dominican Republic] country.”  He then proceeded to line out all that he would do to accomplish this.  Find a field.  Ask the local people whether we should do it in a meadow or cut down some jungle.  Ask what sort of field they would want.  Decide how much it would cost.  Not forget to include equipment like balls and bats and helmets.  “Do you think they would want uniforms?”

Then he talked about how he’d write to schools and see if other kids would want to help him raise the money for the fields.  “I think kids in England and America would want to help.”  He went on and on.  Outlining different components of a very well thought-out plan with passion and clarity and excitment.  

He may be hard on my furniture, but I wouldn’t trade him for the world.  

Top Five Favorite Baseball Moments of All Time

When it comes to baseball I'm no expert, but I do pretty well. Especially for a girl. I know what a Fielder's Choice is and I can explain the Dropped Third Strike rule. I'm less a baseball fan than a Rockies Fan, and there's not many places in the world I'd rather be on a cool June night than at Coors Field. I was there tonight with Bridger, Caid and several members of my fam and it got me thinking about how the Rockies have shaped me as a mom and about my Top Five Favorite Baseball Moments of All Time.

The Wildcard Tie-breaker game of 2007 certainly comes to mind. Watching Matt Holiday slide across home and into history. That was one hell of a baseball moment. Thousands of fans screaming, yelling, celebrating. One shining moment of total unity and community as we all let loose our emotion and joined in a collective, “WOO HOO!” I loved watching my son Bridger. Four years old that summer. Able to name every player on the roster including their name, number, and position. He could recognize them all by number and was often our point guy—“Hey Bridger? Who’s number…?” Didn’t matter who it was he could tell you.

The exhaustingly fantastic 21 wins out of 22 at the end of 2007. Sure there were several games, but that was a ‘moment’ in Rockies fan history we’ll never forget.

The Allstar game of 2004. We let Bridger stay up late. The image of his chubby toddler body squatting to be the catcher, winding up as the pitcher, swinging his imaginary bat as the hitter—it’s indelibly printed in my mind. Dressed in pin striped pajamas and sporting his Rockies cap and his glove. He stayed awake until the very end of that game. 10:30pm and he wasn’t even two years old. After we put him to bed, I hopped into the shower where my water broke. Caid was born later that night. Kincaid Joshua Anderberg—named Kincaid after a character in one of my favorite books, The Brothers K. A fantastic baseball book if ever there was one.

A game one night in July 2002. I don’t remember who we played, but I’ll never forget the two cutie pie little Rockies fans I sat next to that game. Aged approximately 3 & 5. Rockies t-shirts and ball caps. I’d just had THE ultrasound that morning. The one where I was told the little newborn sized red gingham dress with the cherries on the front wouldn’t be needed—we were having a boy. WHAT?!?! I wasn’t sure what in the world I would do with a boy. I was shocked—and worried. Over and over again the little boys next to me would yell, “Laaaaaaarrry WALK-ER!” They stayed for the whole game and it wasn’t just for the snacks. They clearly loved baseball. Those boys gave me hope. Maybe being a ‘boy mom’ wouldn’t be so bad after all.

If you had told me then that one of the biggest heart aches for our family in moving to London would be leaving our beloved Rockies, I would not have believed you. I remember the day Bridger asked, "But Mom, why would we move to London when the Rockies play HERE?" I wouldn't have believed it would be their once anti-baseball daddy who would get the projector all rigged up this year and make everyone dress in Rockies duds for the first game of the season watched so many thousands of miles away. How could I have known then how wonderful it would be to snuggle up to my little boys every morning as we check scores and stats and watch highlights on my iPhone from the games the night before. That gingham dresses would pale in comparison to dozens of Rockies tshirts and adorable Rockies uniforms. That the little boy in my womb would cry when his favorite players got traded and check the standings every single day.

I think the 5th ‘Top 5 Moment’ would be tonight. Sitting between my little Rockies fans. Dressed up in their full baseball regalia. “Laaaaaaaaarrry WALK-ER” has been replaced by ‘TU-LO! TU-LO! TU-LO!’ but the sentiment is the same. Two little boys. Two cutie pie brothers. One stoked to learn the difference between a safety squeeze and a suicide squeeze and to see Ubaldo pitch 9 innings. The other with a Rockies flag he’d bought with hard-earned chores money. He turned to me at one point and said, “Isn’t this a GREAT game?!?!” I thought, "Yep!" This is a great game. It might be just a baseball game to everyone else, but to me it’s the thing that brought me together with my boys. The game that made being a ‘boy mom’ one of the “Top 5 Greatest Things of All Time.”