A few years back, when Aimee was living with Beth out in Pullman, Beth mentioned something about parents always talking about their kids. Beth said that she used to find it annoying when parents would never talk about any other topic, and would usually even find a way to bring up their kids to at best tangentially related topics. (not that I know anything about moving a conversation to my own thoughts via at best tangentially related topics) But once she was spending so much time and energy on Aimee she found that she would do the same.
Well, if I continue writing I feel that I will probably end up doing the same, just as fair warning to anyone who might be reading. Because even though D-Day (for due day) is still a little over five weeks away, I often spend a bit of time out of every day telling people about Neville.
And what I wanted to share with you today is that it's fascinating to me how much I am already projecting myself onto this little life that I've only seen as pixels on a sonogram screen and as random bumpings out of Cassandra's belly. When we visited Beth over Labor Day I told her that my biggest goal as a parent is to let Neville be herself without having her live my life. The example I gave was that I was pretty sure Neville would grow up a Husky fan just by proximity to me, but that if she ended up wanting to go to WSU for college, I want to move beyond supporting (because supporting sounds like I don't approve, but will accept and therefor voice my acceptance to overcome the lack of approving. Got that?) and go straight to just being glad that my kid found a good place for school.
But not having her live my life will be a constant struggle. It turns out Neville is a pretty active kid, in utero. Sometimes Cassandra wakes up in the middle of the night because Neville has decided it's time to do some gymnastics. At dinner she'll just give Cassandra a punch. And definitely whenever Cassandra is sitting in the wrong position Neville will let her know. Now, obviously this is not unusual, but in talking with our co-workers it sounds like Neville is carrying this out a little longer than most. Cassandra has specifically been told that as birth gets closer babies will settle in to their too-cramped environment and calm down a bit. But for the last two weeks Neville has not reached that point, even though we were told to expect it by now.
With each passing day of Neville staying active, I attribute it to my own characteristics. She's full of energy. She's a bit of a smart ass. (hence the pokes during dinner) She'll enjoy dancing. She likes moving when music comes on, so obviously she loves what we play. Most importantly, she has kind of a "hey, life can't get to staid and boring, let's liven the place up" attitude. Or so I feel. Neville's not settling down for the final month because she doesn't WANT to. I'm certain all sorts of developmental experts will tell me I'm projecting a bit. But that's my point. I know that I am, and I still can't stop. She's my girl, and I'm going to be proud of her, but of course she's going to be a lot like me. I mean, doesn't everyone want to?
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Becoming a parent
As the birth of Neville gets closer and closer, I have many people in my work life giving me advice on how much life will change for me. In the past I've tended to ignore these types of comments, mainly because none of those moments seem to live up to the hype of "life-changing." Don't get me wrong, I can look back at the last 10 years and see that lots of things have changed, but it's more of a gradual thing.
Oddly enough, my confirmation was one of the reasons (among several) that I drifted away from Catholicism between the ages of 16 and 22. The process as a whole did not really excite me. My older sister, Beth, had a wonderful experience throughout the whole year leading up to her confirmation, and always spoke highly of it. I couldn't stand the guy teaching my year (it was his first year, and he replaced the couple that had led Beth's class) and he said many things I either ignored for being unrealistic or thought was outright wrong. So in the end confirmation classes weren't nearly a good enough experience to
However, the biggest reason confirmation didn't turn out to be a life-changing event was probably because of the expected grand finale. We were told over and over that THE reason for confirmation was that the holy spirit would come to you at the moment of confirmation and you would feel his grace. At 16, I'm pretty sure I didn't know what to expect, but I did expect something. On that day, I didn't really feel anything.
Now, like I said, that was just one of the several reasons I drifted away from Catholicism, so maybe it wasn't a momentous occasion because I was already on my way out the door, and the holy spirit knew it. In any case, it lacked the oomph I was lead to believe. I saw it again when high school graduation came, as everyone said how different life was after high school. But again it was a more gradual change. I spent the summer after living in the same place, working in the same place, and hanging out with the same friends. The only thing that changed was not going to school, and it was summer so that seemed entirely normal.
Now, heading off to college probably had the biggest chance of being a specific event where life felt different from that point forward. And I certainly lived and worked in different places, and hung out with different people, from that point forward. But in terms of how I looked at life, how I viewed myself, I was pretty much a work in progress and I can't point to any one event as making a difference in how I approached life.
There are many other events, including engagement and wedding, where I was told that things would be different. In the end I always felt they were gradual processes changing me. It's probably a little bit because life is different now for a lot of people. (Thanks to Maggie Grumm-Albert for pointing this out.) My wedding didn't lead to a direct change in living conditions. I already had a lot of furniture, dishes, whatever. Yes, it was a major change. But I still feel like it didn't change the essence of Scoob.
But expecting a child, I can see how that will be a life-changing event. Over the last few years people have said how much it would change things, and because of how often people have been wrong before, I tended to ignore them. I guess after enough iterations of "Your life will never be the same" I just assumed that my laid-back approach to life made it so I never stressed about things, and thus was not changed. But this, this will be different.
It's going to change everything. I first thought about it when Cassandra and I were eating dinner with a CD playing and both of us reading a book. Nice, quiet evening. It hit me that come Neville's birth, those dinners will be few and far between for 20 odd years. I get so excited about all the things that I want to do with Neville, and all the activities that we'll get to do with her. I think about changing, feeding, caring for her as an infant. About playing with her as she gets older. Taking her to school, taking her to activities after school, worrying about her when she's no longer young enough for me to take her everywhere she goes. And it's clear that on or around December 3rd of this year my life will have a clear demarcation point: Pre-children, and Post-children.
And I couldn't be more excited.
Oddly enough, my confirmation was one of the reasons (among several) that I drifted away from Catholicism between the ages of 16 and 22. The process as a whole did not really excite me. My older sister, Beth, had a wonderful experience throughout the whole year leading up to her confirmation, and always spoke highly of it. I couldn't stand the guy teaching my year (it was his first year, and he replaced the couple that had led Beth's class) and he said many things I either ignored for being unrealistic or thought was outright wrong. So in the end confirmation classes weren't nearly a good enough experience to
However, the biggest reason confirmation didn't turn out to be a life-changing event was probably because of the expected grand finale. We were told over and over that THE reason for confirmation was that the holy spirit would come to you at the moment of confirmation and you would feel his grace. At 16, I'm pretty sure I didn't know what to expect, but I did expect something. On that day, I didn't really feel anything.
Now, like I said, that was just one of the several reasons I drifted away from Catholicism, so maybe it wasn't a momentous occasion because I was already on my way out the door, and the holy spirit knew it. In any case, it lacked the oomph I was lead to believe. I saw it again when high school graduation came, as everyone said how different life was after high school. But again it was a more gradual change. I spent the summer after living in the same place, working in the same place, and hanging out with the same friends. The only thing that changed was not going to school, and it was summer so that seemed entirely normal.
Now, heading off to college probably had the biggest chance of being a specific event where life felt different from that point forward. And I certainly lived and worked in different places, and hung out with different people, from that point forward. But in terms of how I looked at life, how I viewed myself, I was pretty much a work in progress and I can't point to any one event as making a difference in how I approached life.
There are many other events, including engagement and wedding, where I was told that things would be different. In the end I always felt they were gradual processes changing me. It's probably a little bit because life is different now for a lot of people. (Thanks to Maggie Grumm-Albert for pointing this out.) My wedding didn't lead to a direct change in living conditions. I already had a lot of furniture, dishes, whatever. Yes, it was a major change. But I still feel like it didn't change the essence of Scoob.
But expecting a child, I can see how that will be a life-changing event. Over the last few years people have said how much it would change things, and because of how often people have been wrong before, I tended to ignore them. I guess after enough iterations of "Your life will never be the same" I just assumed that my laid-back approach to life made it so I never stressed about things, and thus was not changed. But this, this will be different.
It's going to change everything. I first thought about it when Cassandra and I were eating dinner with a CD playing and both of us reading a book. Nice, quiet evening. It hit me that come Neville's birth, those dinners will be few and far between for 20 odd years. I get so excited about all the things that I want to do with Neville, and all the activities that we'll get to do with her. I think about changing, feeding, caring for her as an infant. About playing with her as she gets older. Taking her to school, taking her to activities after school, worrying about her when she's no longer young enough for me to take her everywhere she goes. And it's clear that on or around December 3rd of this year my life will have a clear demarcation point: Pre-children, and Post-children.
And I couldn't be more excited.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
The Kid
Yesterday was a sad day for me, but today is a little more bittersweet. Yesterday Ken Griffey Jr. announced his retirement from Major League Baseball, and with it came the end of era in my life.
Baseball was and always has been a huge part of my life. One of my toddler pictures shows me swinging at a ball on a tee, already clearly a left-handed hitter. When my family drove across the country to move from Maryland to Washington in the summer of 1987 we had a Fisher Price t-ball set, with a plastic plate and tee combo, and three flexible rubber/plastic bases. I don't remember where we were exactly on that trip, but at one stop for lunch we played a game in a park. I DO remember that I hit a home run off this ball that I just crushed. Since I was 6, and the bases were probably about 30 feet apart, I bet the hit went no more than 100 feet, if that. But in my mind it went forever because it flew in the air to this tree that was SO FAR AWAY.
When we got to Washington we moved in with my aunt and uncle in Woodinville while we shopped for a house. Telling the story of how far I hit the ball was the first thing I had to tell them. I can't remember a time when I wasn't going to be a baseball player, because that's just all I was ever going to be. It's probably been years since I told the story of just how far away that tree was, but I must have told every family member about it for months after.
Over the next few years pretty much all my memories are of watching or playing baseball. I have an odd memory of getting eye drops in my eyes (maybe allergies?) while a game with the Texas Rangers was on TV. I couldn't watch through the drops, so I just kept my eyes closed and listened to the game. We took a vacation to the Bay Area to visit another aunt and while there visited Oakland Alameda County Coliseum (always it's real name, to me) to watch an Athletics game. It wasn't my first game in person, but it's the first one I remember clearly. I fell in love with the Athletics and was crushed that fall when Kirk Gibson hit his home run off Dennis Eckersley to win game one of the 1988 World Series.
I was kind of a dual Mariners/Athletics fan for the next few years because the Mariners were home town, and the Athletics were good. I started playing on my own, moving from t-ball to regular little league. I have normal kid memories of how historic I was, like when I made an unassisted triple play. Granted, it was a pop up and none of the kids knew they had to tag up, and the first baseman wasn't paying attention so after catching the popup at short, I tagged second, and ran all the way over to first to complete the play. But again I told every family member that I made a triple play.
Of those family members, the most important to me was my mother. I'd get up early on Sundays to watch the game of the week with her. She was there for every single one of my games, even carting the whole family two hours up to Port Angeles for tournament games when I could have just carpooled with another teammate.
She'd get advice from other adults and pass it along to me. She loved telling the story of one game where she was sitting next to the mother of a kid who had been called in to relieve the starter because of a bases loaded jam in late innings. This kid's mother went on and on about her son, and how fast he threw, and how many strikeouts he had recorded. Mom said this went on during the entire 8 warm up pitches he had. Then I stepped to the plate and roped a bases-clearing double, leading my mother to say (or so she said) simply "That was my son." I like that story not because I was successful, but because my mother was clearly so proud of me.
She'd get complimented by the umpires because of how much fun they had watching me play. In all these comments she noted how they enjoyed my smile, my energy, the obvious fun I had playing the game. I'll never ever claim to be anywhere near as good as the Say Hey Kid, but my mother, who grew up a Giants fan, always said that watching me have fun was like watching Willie Mays have fun playing baseball. I'll never forget that.
Over the early 90's we got to share a love for a similar player, as it was clear that Ken Griffey, Jr. played pretty much the same way. We'd listen to the M's on the radio before they were good enough to have all their games on local cable. In those days we'd get about 2 or 3 games a month on KSTW 11, and we'd always watch them together. He was left handed, he played all out, and he always had a smile on his face. With the exception of not being 6'2", amazing talented, or an outfielder, I was just like him, and definitely tried to be. And we loved him, together.
1995 was, and always will be I imagine, my greatest season as a baseball fan. I think we were watching the game when Junior broke his wrist making an amazing catch against the wall, while Randy Johnson rolled off the mound in agonized disbelief. Throughout the summer we watched as the M's struggled to stay close in the pennant race, Alex Diaz filling in as ably as he could. I played in a fall league that year, and with each passing game the parents were paying less and less attention to the game on the field, and more attention to the game on their radios. One game in particular a player, I think it was Tino Martinez, hit a home run right as a ball got by the catcher and back to the screen while I was hitting. An amazing cheer went up from the crowd, while the catcher and I looked back at the stands, confused. Once we found out what happened it was definitely a few seconds before our game could continue.
The unfortunate main story to this baseball back-story is that Mom had been diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 1992. She had already had 3 surgeries by that point, along with one round of chemotherapy and two rounds of radiation. As September built towards October Mom was again not feeling well, but we spent three hours together at least six night a week watching or listening to the Mariners as they staged their epic comeback to win the AL West. We were there when Lois Sojo cleared the bases in the 8th to give the M's the win in the one game playoff. We were crushed when Tim Belcher gave up the extra inning home run to Jim Leyritz for the Mariners to come home down 0-2 in their Division series against the Yankees. We were pretty low when Chris Bosio fell behind 5-0 early in game 4, thinking it was all over.
But then the M's came back in that game. Edgar hit a grand slam, and Bone followed with a solo shot, to take it to a deciding 5th game. When Griffey came to the plate in the 12th inning with a chance to win it, he had already hit five home runs in five games, and we certain he'd come through again. But in an even more exciting turn of events he singled Joey Cora over to 3rd, and then there was The Double. To this day, I can't watch it or hear Dave Niehaus' call (Right now, the Mariners looking for the tie. They would take a fly ball, they would love a base hit into the gap and they could win it with Junior's speed. The stretch... and the 0-1 pitch on the way to Edgar Martinez swung on and LINED DOWN THE LEFT FIELD LINE FOR A BASE HIT! HERE COMES JOEY, HERE IS JUNIOR TO THIRD BASE, THEY'RE GOING TO WAVE HIM IN! THE THROW TO THE PLATE WILL BE ... LATE! THE MARINERS ARE GOING TO PLAY FOR THE AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP! I DON'T BELIEVE IT! IT JUST CONTINUES! MY, OH MY!) without getting chills. It doesn't matter to me that the M's finally ran out of gas in game 6 of the ALCS against Cleveland and didn't even make the World Series. My mother and I followed every game of that season, and my enduring memory will always be that wonderful photograph where Griffey's smile from the bottom of the pile lit up all of Washington. And remember that my mother loved watching me play because I'd play with that same smile.
That was the last season my mother and I got to watch together, because it turned out the reason she wasn't feeling well was another recurrence of the cancer. Faced with another surgery that she didn't have the energy to handle, my Mother passed away on February 23rd, 1996. Baseball is still my link to her, and I was so fortunate with how much time it gave us together. Over the last few years as players have retired it struck me again and again how few were left that we had watched together. With Griffey retiring, the last one is gone. Today, I'm feeling better, finding catharsis in listening to sports radio and hearing everyone share their memories of Junior. I look at Baseball Reference and see that some of the most similar players statistically to Griffey are Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, and yes, Willie Mays. I'll be taking a trip to Cooperstown in 5 years to watch the last, and greatest, player of my childhood head into the Hall of Fame. I'll thank him, I'll say hello to my mother, and I'll say goodbye to a part of young Scott.
So long, Kid.
Baseball was and always has been a huge part of my life. One of my toddler pictures shows me swinging at a ball on a tee, already clearly a left-handed hitter. When my family drove across the country to move from Maryland to Washington in the summer of 1987 we had a Fisher Price t-ball set, with a plastic plate and tee combo, and three flexible rubber/plastic bases. I don't remember where we were exactly on that trip, but at one stop for lunch we played a game in a park. I DO remember that I hit a home run off this ball that I just crushed. Since I was 6, and the bases were probably about 30 feet apart, I bet the hit went no more than 100 feet, if that. But in my mind it went forever because it flew in the air to this tree that was SO FAR AWAY.
When we got to Washington we moved in with my aunt and uncle in Woodinville while we shopped for a house. Telling the story of how far I hit the ball was the first thing I had to tell them. I can't remember a time when I wasn't going to be a baseball player, because that's just all I was ever going to be. It's probably been years since I told the story of just how far away that tree was, but I must have told every family member about it for months after.
Over the next few years pretty much all my memories are of watching or playing baseball. I have an odd memory of getting eye drops in my eyes (maybe allergies?) while a game with the Texas Rangers was on TV. I couldn't watch through the drops, so I just kept my eyes closed and listened to the game. We took a vacation to the Bay Area to visit another aunt and while there visited Oakland Alameda County Coliseum (always it's real name, to me) to watch an Athletics game. It wasn't my first game in person, but it's the first one I remember clearly. I fell in love with the Athletics and was crushed that fall when Kirk Gibson hit his home run off Dennis Eckersley to win game one of the 1988 World Series.
I was kind of a dual Mariners/Athletics fan for the next few years because the Mariners were home town, and the Athletics were good. I started playing on my own, moving from t-ball to regular little league. I have normal kid memories of how historic I was, like when I made an unassisted triple play. Granted, it was a pop up and none of the kids knew they had to tag up, and the first baseman wasn't paying attention so after catching the popup at short, I tagged second, and ran all the way over to first to complete the play. But again I told every family member that I made a triple play.
Of those family members, the most important to me was my mother. I'd get up early on Sundays to watch the game of the week with her. She was there for every single one of my games, even carting the whole family two hours up to Port Angeles for tournament games when I could have just carpooled with another teammate.
She'd get advice from other adults and pass it along to me. She loved telling the story of one game where she was sitting next to the mother of a kid who had been called in to relieve the starter because of a bases loaded jam in late innings. This kid's mother went on and on about her son, and how fast he threw, and how many strikeouts he had recorded. Mom said this went on during the entire 8 warm up pitches he had. Then I stepped to the plate and roped a bases-clearing double, leading my mother to say (or so she said) simply "That was my son." I like that story not because I was successful, but because my mother was clearly so proud of me.
She'd get complimented by the umpires because of how much fun they had watching me play. In all these comments she noted how they enjoyed my smile, my energy, the obvious fun I had playing the game. I'll never ever claim to be anywhere near as good as the Say Hey Kid, but my mother, who grew up a Giants fan, always said that watching me have fun was like watching Willie Mays have fun playing baseball. I'll never forget that.
Over the early 90's we got to share a love for a similar player, as it was clear that Ken Griffey, Jr. played pretty much the same way. We'd listen to the M's on the radio before they were good enough to have all their games on local cable. In those days we'd get about 2 or 3 games a month on KSTW 11, and we'd always watch them together. He was left handed, he played all out, and he always had a smile on his face. With the exception of not being 6'2", amazing talented, or an outfielder, I was just like him, and definitely tried to be. And we loved him, together.
1995 was, and always will be I imagine, my greatest season as a baseball fan. I think we were watching the game when Junior broke his wrist making an amazing catch against the wall, while Randy Johnson rolled off the mound in agonized disbelief. Throughout the summer we watched as the M's struggled to stay close in the pennant race, Alex Diaz filling in as ably as he could. I played in a fall league that year, and with each passing game the parents were paying less and less attention to the game on the field, and more attention to the game on their radios. One game in particular a player, I think it was Tino Martinez, hit a home run right as a ball got by the catcher and back to the screen while I was hitting. An amazing cheer went up from the crowd, while the catcher and I looked back at the stands, confused. Once we found out what happened it was definitely a few seconds before our game could continue.
The unfortunate main story to this baseball back-story is that Mom had been diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 1992. She had already had 3 surgeries by that point, along with one round of chemotherapy and two rounds of radiation. As September built towards October Mom was again not feeling well, but we spent three hours together at least six night a week watching or listening to the Mariners as they staged their epic comeback to win the AL West. We were there when Lois Sojo cleared the bases in the 8th to give the M's the win in the one game playoff. We were crushed when Tim Belcher gave up the extra inning home run to Jim Leyritz for the Mariners to come home down 0-2 in their Division series against the Yankees. We were pretty low when Chris Bosio fell behind 5-0 early in game 4, thinking it was all over.
But then the M's came back in that game. Edgar hit a grand slam, and Bone followed with a solo shot, to take it to a deciding 5th game. When Griffey came to the plate in the 12th inning with a chance to win it, he had already hit five home runs in five games, and we certain he'd come through again. But in an even more exciting turn of events he singled Joey Cora over to 3rd, and then there was The Double. To this day, I can't watch it or hear Dave Niehaus' call (Right now, the Mariners looking for the tie. They would take a fly ball, they would love a base hit into the gap and they could win it with Junior's speed. The stretch... and the 0-1 pitch on the way to Edgar Martinez swung on and LINED DOWN THE LEFT FIELD LINE FOR A BASE HIT! HERE COMES JOEY, HERE IS JUNIOR TO THIRD BASE, THEY'RE GOING TO WAVE HIM IN! THE THROW TO THE PLATE WILL BE ... LATE! THE MARINERS ARE GOING TO PLAY FOR THE AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP! I DON'T BELIEVE IT! IT JUST CONTINUES! MY, OH MY!) without getting chills. It doesn't matter to me that the M's finally ran out of gas in game 6 of the ALCS against Cleveland and didn't even make the World Series. My mother and I followed every game of that season, and my enduring memory will always be that wonderful photograph where Griffey's smile from the bottom of the pile lit up all of Washington. And remember that my mother loved watching me play because I'd play with that same smile.
That was the last season my mother and I got to watch together, because it turned out the reason she wasn't feeling well was another recurrence of the cancer. Faced with another surgery that she didn't have the energy to handle, my Mother passed away on February 23rd, 1996. Baseball is still my link to her, and I was so fortunate with how much time it gave us together. Over the last few years as players have retired it struck me again and again how few were left that we had watched together. With Griffey retiring, the last one is gone. Today, I'm feeling better, finding catharsis in listening to sports radio and hearing everyone share their memories of Junior. I look at Baseball Reference and see that some of the most similar players statistically to Griffey are Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, and yes, Willie Mays. I'll be taking a trip to Cooperstown in 5 years to watch the last, and greatest, player of my childhood head into the Hall of Fame. I'll thank him, I'll say hello to my mother, and I'll say goodbye to a part of young Scott.
So long, Kid.
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