… and won’t remember that his first exposure to his favorite team was a 4th quarter meltdown that rivaled the Mavs’ performance in game 3 of the 2006 NBA Finals. Otherwise, Conley’s first gameday was a roaring success even if he was asleep 20 minutes after kickoff. As cute as the Cowboys were ugly! 
Whew. Why hello there, blog… I suppose it’s been a little while, hasn’t it? SO MANY THINGS have happened since I last blogged that I hardly knew where to start. My natural inclination in situations such as these is to make a list and work my way through top to bottom.
And then I feel remarkably lame for not documenting my goings-on with more regularity.
So, about that list. As best I can remember, here’s what’s happened in my life since I wrote my last post:
So buckle up, because like any good list, this one is actionable. The silver lining to having not written anything for months and months is that now I’ve got lots of stories and plenty of photos to share.
During week 24, Sweet Tiny Baby A was the size of a large ear of corn. I felt the little dude kick for the first time during week 24 – in the middle of church, and I nearly jumped out of my seat when I felt it. I’m fairly certain I disturbed no fewer than 4 people with my reaction… luckily for us we attend the “casual” service.
Despite the best efforts of the Texas Rangers’ marketing partners to come up with catchy slogans on an annual basis (“You could use some baseball;” “Built for fun”), they left their job half-done this year. “It’s time” should have instead been penned “It’s time to claw our way out of a 30-year quagmire.” Or maybe that was just implied for the sake of brevity. Considering the challenges this team has faced – including an apathetic yet passive/aggressively hostile owner, ballpark characteristics that shoo away free agent pitchers before their agents’ phones even ring with a contract offer, and a shoestring payroll – I’d say their success this year may still be understated, even a month after all the pundits and sportswriters have had their say.
Having been a Rangers fan for the better part of two decades, I suppose I had been conditioned to expect heartbreak – usually in the form of a quick start to the season followed by a summer plateau and, inevitably, a tumble back to earth sometime after the All Star break. Yet deep down I assumed that at some point the Rangers would worm their way into the playoffs and maybe even win a series. I never expected that they would dominate their divisional opponents and essentially lock up a playoff spot (though not mathematically) before July was over. And if you had suggested, years ago, that the Rangers would some day run roughshod over not one, but two playoff opponents – one being the hated Yankees – I would have thought you were simply a visitor to our pale blue dot, out of tune with the realities faced by humans.
Thanks to a couple of awesome friends, I was able to be a tiny part of history along with tens of thousands of other fans. My buddy Stephen found standing room tickets to game 3 of the ALCS, where the Little Rangers destroyed the Yankees to earn their first home playoff win ever:
A few games later, the Rangers finished off the Yankees while carpetbaggers whined all over Facebook. We watched the clinching game on tv with some of our best friends and we jumped around like fools when the final out was made. The ensuing celebratory high fives (lightly) sprained one of my fingers. It was worth it.
Like the nerd that I am, I went to Academy after the game to buy an AL pennant shirt. Like the ridiculously awesome wife that she is, Jen went with me.
Unfortunately, the World Series was a slightly different experience for the Little Rangers. Thanks to the sheer generosity of my great buddy Chad, I was able to attend game 4. “World Series in Arlington.” Four words I never thought I’d live to see strung together… at least not before I saw “Ags win National Championship.”
Above, Chad drops The Claw while I attempt to uncork an invisible wine bottle in my ear.
We saw Lyle Lovett sing the National Anthem and GWB throw out the first pitch. I was in the same building as Hank Aaron. Finally, in the crescendo of pre-game festivities, each event more special or more intense than the preceding, Mini-Wash said “Play ball!” (Seriously, Lyle Lovett, a former president, and arguably the game’s best player ever, and Mini-Wash is the headliner of that crew?)
In the end, there wasn’t enough in the tank to do to the Giants what they had done to the Devil Rays and Yankees. Maybe it was an emotional letdown after beating the Yankees; maybe the Giants were just that much better. Regardless, given the state of the front office at the beginning of the season (abysmal is an understatement) and the changes that have occurred since then, I’m optimistic that this season is a prologue and that the proverbial best is yet to come.
So, thanks, Little Rangers. Thanks for making me feel like a little kid again – the one who endured hot Texas summers in a florescent orange jersey and tight white pants on an overcrowded Little League field so he could dream he was Julio Franco. Thanks for helping me briefly abandon my self-lauded pragmatism in favor of the passion and unbridled optimism I had when I was 9 and the team was so much worse off. And, at the risk of sounding cheesy, thanks for making a little part of my heart feel like this, fireworks and all:
Week 22: Baby A was the size of a spaghetti squash that was hopefully a bit smaller than the one we found at our local purveyor of produce. During week 22, Jen started to get a bit uncomfortable in bed (leg cramps and all); Jen called the baby “Harvey,” which astute readers may remember is the name of one of our cats; we went in for a sonogram and learned that Baby A is still a bit big for his age.
One quibble we’ve had with our house since moving in is that we didn’t have a paved driveway. This meant that any time it rained (and often even when it didn’t rain), we tracked dirt and tiny elm leaves into the house or the car. We finally worked up the nerve a couple of weeks ago to get some quotes from concrete companies and pulled the trigger on having a driveway poured.
It turned out to be more of a spectacle than I imagined. The contractor excavated a huge amount of dirt—I’d estimate this pile of dirt at about 5’x5’x15’:
The crew worked their tails off leveling the surface and putting down forms:
We woke up early the next morning to a cement truck backed onto our property… which was surreal and awesome:
The final product after being sloped, broom finished, and the forms removed:
We came home during lunch to try to put our palm prints in the fresh cement, but it had already cured a little too much. Jen wondered if backing over our hands with the car would have left an imprint, but I politely declined to volunteer:
It seems ridiculous to get excited about finally having a concrete driveway, but it’ll be so much easier to clear leaves off—and this time of year we have tons of maddeningly tiny, unwieldy elm leaves. Plus it created some built-in projects: they took away enough dirt in excavation that I’ll have to build a short retaining wall between the yard and driveway, and we’ll have to do something about that flower bed to the left of the concrete.
During week 21, Tiny Baby A was the length of a banana bigger than the one we used as a prop. Also of note during week 21: Jen felt the little guy move and was certain about it for the first time; Jen started feeling tired again like she was in the first trimester; we spent most of the week watching the Little Rangers in the World Series after 22 years of waiting.
Turns out our weekly numbering was off by one because of our party/cupcake photo one-two combo. So… in week 20, it turns out Baby A was actually the size of a cantaloupe. Who knew?
In week 20 we finished off our leftover cupcakes and celebrated the news that we’re having a little dude.
Little dude: We only know you through kicks and your mom’s leg cramps and black & white photos with less clarity than those of the Loch Ness monster… and yet you’ve already brought us so much joy. We’re gonna have so much fun together—and even when things are hard (and life can be hard sometimes), we’ll have your back. Because through thick and thin, God provides; he is enough, and even if things look bleak he’ll never give us more than we can handle. We’ll huddle around that knowledge as a team, with your little hands in ours. We love you and can’t wait to meet you.
We’ve got a bit of business to catch you up on – namely, the gender of our tiny human! During week 19, we had some friends and family over for a gender reveal party – we took a sealed sonogram to the bakery, where they hid blue or pink frosting inside cupcakes. Then, all our guests bit into their snack along with us…
… and the frosting was blue! We’re having a boy! It was a really fun evening, and we were blessed to be in the company of so many loved ones as we all found out together. Here are a few detail shots and other photos from the evening.
Team “It’s a boy!”:
Team “It’s a girl!”:
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