Sunday, May 8 2011 – Mets 2, Dodgers 4
As I mentioned in the previous post, I spent this past Sunday with my family at Citi Field, our first ballgame as a family and Lily’s first game ever. Both girls were pretty excited, but in all fairness they would be excited to go to prison as long as there was the promise of hot pretzels and cotton candy.
Having Kate and I for parents has predisposed them to the Mets and baseball. It’s on the TV most weekends and Mr. Met and the various Mets logos decorate a number of my t-shirts and hats. They recently picked out some Mets hats of their own and Caelyn still squeezes into a David Wright shirt I bought her two years ago because she loves it so much. They’ll occasionally “watch Mets with Dad” as they call it, but often that watching involves a lot of playing with My Little Ponies and the occasional glance up at the screen when David Wright comes to bat.
Neither of us went into this particular trip to the ballpark with expectations of actually, you know, seeing the game. I didn’t even know that it was Mother’s Day when I bought our tickets. I just chose a free Sunday and a team I’d like to see them play. We arrived to a fairly empty parking lot and for only the second time in my life I parked close to the stadium itself. Even arriving early in the past, earlier than we were on Sunday, I’ve always parked by the Marina, the stadium lots full. The only other time I got a spot this close was on the last day of the 2010 season – my first game with Caelyn.
We ate our picnic lunch on the sidewalk in front of our car. I saw an elderly couple tailgating with a small portable gas grill, a card table, folding chairs, and a portable radio – and for the 1001st time I wished I had thought to pick up a little grill. It was the little radio that made the scene. It looked like the sort of old fashioned transistor radio my Dad would have saved his allowance for in 1955.
Lily had aggravated me in her usual Lily way of not listening, nearly walking into traffic several times, refusing to eat, not listening, and I knew I needed to calm down. So when it was time to head inside, I took her little hand in mine and we walked in while I told her all about Shea Stadium, the name with which she shares her middle name, and where it was in relation to Citi Field and all the times mommy and daddy had gone there. Technically Lily had been there herself in-utero.
We went in together and I held her up high in my arms to show her the field. I don’t car how old you are, there is nothing like walking into a major league ballpark and seeing that lush green field for the first time. Both girls love the apple and so she was delighted when I pointed it out to her. She asked why it hadn’t come back up at several points during the game. Now that’s a hard question to answer.
We had seats in the new BJ’s Clubhouse/Mr. Met’s Landing/Family Area where the discount was excellent, the view equally so, and as advertised we were visited by Mr. Met himself in the bottom of the 1st. He waved and threw tightly rolled orange t-shirts to screaming kids and the kids screamed and waved back. It was wonderful.
Immediately after his departure Caelyn sat down and asked for a hot pretzel and Lily wanted to scour the park for Mr. Met, which says more about their personalities than you know. Kate and Lily got up to catch one last glimpse of Mr. Met and to acquire a pretzel and Caelyn sat on my lap (the seats were quite hot from the sun) and I explained what was going on in each play. After a few moments Lily wanted to get up again and so she and Kate went for a walk along the promenade while Caelyn and I moved back a row for some shadier open seats and ate our pretzel and drank much water.
Caelyn likes to call me “Mets fan” whenever we’re doing some sort of baseball related activity, like hitting a wiffle ball off the tee, watching a game at home, or just wearing our hats while we’re out shopping together. But when she turned to me, sitting indian style in her own seat, and said “Hey Mets fan, I love being at the game with you,” my heart just melted. Kids can do that to you like no one else. It’s a good thing they’re pretty much oblivious to it too. You’d buy them a car if they asked for it in moments like that.
Kate and Lily returned triumphantly with cotton candy in hand and we all ate the pink fluffy stuff and (sort of) watched an inning or two. We lasted until the top of the 7th when both kids were getting a touch cranky and the thought of getting ahead of the traffic that comes with the mass exodus following the last pitch sounded pretty good. It was deja vu as we walked across a parking lot full of cars but devoid of people as Take Me Out to the Ball Game came blaring over the loudspeakers, just as it had when Caelyn and I had left our first game together last year.
The kids passed out pretty quickly into the return trip and Kate and I listened to the rest of the game on the radio while stuck waiting to get onto the Whitestone. We drove home tired and a little sunburned, but happy all around. I had realized a longtime dream of both having a family and taking them all to a game, and I got to have a special moment with each of the girls.
The prospect of having two kids scared me when Kate was pregnant with Lily, and even more so after we found out it was to be another girl. I couldn’t imagine how you couldn’t have a favorite, or how I could love anyone as much I already loved Caelyn. After Lily was born it only got worse, it was incredibly difficult to see her as a new baby rather than a weird time warp back to when Caelyn was a baby herself. They looked similar at that early age and since all my experiences with infants were with Caelyn alone, I suppose it was only a natural reaction.
Luckily that all changed shortly. When Lily was not quite 3 months old two of my closest friends got married back home in the Hudson Valley. We stayed up for the week following the wedding to visit with family and one later afternoon I took a walk around the village my in-laws live in with Lily in her stroller. I talked to her the whole time, much as I used to do with Caelyn when she was a baby, but despite all the similarities – this walk felt very different. I talked about different things and her reactions were her own. It’s extraordinary how quickly children develop such unique personalities.
From that day on, I knew that I loved Lily just as much as Caelyn, no more and no less – but that the love I had for her was completely different. And my relationship with each of them is also completely different from one another but yet they remain equal to me in every conceivable way. It’s indescribable really, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. The only way I can think to say it is that Lily is my heart and Caelyn is my soul.
I look forward to many more games with them. Days like that are the kind that remind you that it’s a privilege just to be their father, and when I see glimpses of the women they will someday become I know what an incredible responsibility that is. But it is one that I welcome and accept with humility.
