24 Weeks: The Bump Has Declared Itself

We took some belly pics this weekend on our way to the Broadway show Memphis with Whit & Harriett, which is why I'm a little more dressed than usual. Memphis was an excellent show; however, I got a little "hormotional" during a scene that portrayed racially motivated violence. My brain was screaming, "What kind of world are we bringing a child into? This show is based only 60 years ago, but hatred is everywhere.  How will we raise our kiddo to be kind and compassionate to all in this world?" ... and then I got a bit weepy.  Good thing it was dark in the theater.  Turns out Zac also squirt some during that scene, so maybe I wasn't so hormotional after all.

You will notice the lack of fruit in these pictures -- there are two reasons for that: (1) I could only find papaya in the fancy-schmancy grocery store on the Upper East Side, and I am way too cheap to purchase fruit there, and (2) have you seen the size of some papayas? They kind of freaked me out.

Speaking of being freaked out, it doesn't take much these days. I walked into a smaller Babies-R-Us this week and almost needed a paper bag to breathe into -- it's so much stuff! It's all so overwhelming! I try to repeat the mantra "Babies just need food, love, diapers and a place to sleep," but to walk into a place that was wall-to-wall-to-ceiling of kid-related accoutrements .... I got overwhelmed.

So, the running list of things that are more upsetting to me now compared to a mere six months ago: large stores filled with baby things, fictional depictions of violence and hatred ...and fruit. I'm sure this is normal, right?

Actually, I think that a few moments of panic are probably pretty normal. No matter how many books I read (I have one, and I've ordered two more...) I know that nothing will prepare me for bringing home our child. I've never read or heard the sentence, 'Joe and Mary knew exactly what they were in for with their new baby, and they were completely prepared! Everything went perfectly smoothly.' (I just realized that my Catholic upbringing is showing through a bit with my name choices. Weird. I'd say that most certainly the Mary and Joseph that I'm thinking of were NOT prepared! And they had angels talking to them and a direct line to The Big Dude In The Sky. What chance do I have?? But, I digress...) ANYWAY. I know that there will be chaos. I think that I've heard family life described as the "whole catastrophe," and I look forward to having my own glorious catastrophe. But I'm also going to forgive myself my moments of panic; after all, I am part StressMonkey, and it's better to be an occasional StressMonkey now than to have a meltdown when a wee little Monkey is depending on me, right?

Speaking of the Monkey, s/he has been more active lately - lots of wiggles and squirms! It's oddly fantastic.

Enough yapping, here are the belly pictures! Please forgive my silly faces!

Check out the bump, y'all!

Side bump: it's almost the size of my booty. Nice.

So that's the 24 week/6month update. Much love to all!

Indoctrination Can Be Fun, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Red Sox

So this entry is definitely a bit overdue, as the... unpleasantness... happened a few weeks ago, but it still applies to the large future, and well, hell, it does still sting a little bit.

During this MLB preseason, every sports pundit with a voice gave my beloved Red Sox the nod as the AL team to advance to the October (November?) Classic. I had almost every reason to agree. But in the back of my mind, I knew one shouldn't be so blindly optimistic.

Certainly, the Sox threw us some emotional curveballs as they inauspiciously opened the season 2-10, losing their first six tilts out the gate. They then became the team all the pundits said they would be: easily the best team in all of baseball for about three-plus months. But that dubious beginning still lingered in my memory, and wow, did they ever bring it back full-circle. Most people reading this probably know, but my boys set a new precedent in the realm of ignominious squander, going 6-20 in September and blowing a nine-game lead in the Wild Card race. Worst sports meltdown ever, statistically (though I still like to think that the '07 Mets were also pretty damn bad, as they blew something like a six-game lead with only two weeks to play).

The last night of the 2011 regular season will probably go down as one of the greatest single nights in sports spectacle history, but it definitely stung that my team ended up at the bottom of the pile after the dust settled. The next morning, I was in an understandably foul mood, and for the most part, my Yankee-loving coworkers were sympathetic, or at the very least, reserved in their Schadenfreude. The first consolation of that day was that my workload was so onerous that I scarcely had a free second to reflect on my hurt and disappointment at what transpired (it would set the tone for the next several weeks, hence only getting to this entry now).

At about 3:00 that day, I got a package delivered to my desk. I instantly processed that it was personal and not something I needed to deal with immediately, so it didn't get another thought for five hours. As I was finally getting to wrap up my day and take what seemed like my first deep breath of the day, I looked at this small box and realized what it must be. It was a three-pack of Red Sox-flavored onesies I'd scooped up on sale.

The first thing that hit me was a really nice warm fuzzy that could be summed up as "my sports heart was just broken, I just got steamrolled by a ridiculous day of work, but what's really important is that my first child will be coming along in just a few months." And of course it made me smile, and it gave me a sense of what's really important in life.

But then I thought more... what am I getting my child into? My mother learned the consoling platitude of the Sox fan sympathizer early (having of course married a New England native), and repeated it to me often growing up in the frustrating '80s and '90s of Sox history: "Be careful, they'll break your heart." I had Amanda watch "Fever Pitch" early in our relationship so she'd get a better understanding of the connection a Sox fan has with his team and how it relates to his (or her) life. And she too retained the single-most important line from that movie, delivered by the main character's uncle as he introduced him to that world: "They'll break ya haht, kid."

Granted, being a Sox fan is not the same tragic torture it used to be before 2004's triumphant curse-break and 2007's near-picture-perfect season of dominance, but it still has its tumultuous ups and downs, as evidenced by this crazy, topsy-turvy, ultimately-utterly-disappointing-failure 2011 season. I guess the important thing is that we, my child(ren) and I, can travel that road together in a celebration of shared experience. I know I'll never forget the joy of getting to watch games 6 & 7 of the 2004 ALCS in the company of my father.

I only hope that if I instill this love of a sports franchise in my children's hearts that they too can learn to cull a larger perspective from what it means to be a Sox fan, especially the darker times (or they can do like Homer: "Just squeeze your rage into a bitter little ball and release it at an appropriate time. Like that day I hit the referee with a whiskey bottle. Remember that, when daddy hit the referee?").

Well, ok, I also hope that they don't do that rebel-against-your-parents thing and become Yankee fans. Oh, the horror.