to be this thing

 

Yesterday, Mr. O and I got to see Daddy play softball for the first time.

It was a victory for me to see him play because for as long as I've known him he has been weighed down by an old injury.  He hurt his shoulder, in college. Three surgeries and lots of years of not feeling like himself later, he is playing again.

It's not a great team. They are all guys from his company, in their forties mostly,  just out to have a good time. They lost one game 3-47, in 6 innings.

Last night was the first game played early enough in the evening that my babe and I could go. They won 20-13.

I won too.

O was a crazy little boy still drunk with the power of newfound toddler tantrums. He was a stunt man on the bleachers, a heckler in the crowd with his chants that sounded eerily like "dauud" (although he's never said Dad before), and the thinner of mommy's patients. But, I have to say, regardless of how corny it might seem.. it was one of the clearest moments of feeling like a real family I've had since O's birth.

That family feeling is a hard one for me.  I come from a broken one and the meaning of the word has always been a bit foggy. But sitting on that bench last night, in the cold, dampness beginning to seep in, with my child carrying on with limitless energy, and hoots springing from some previously unknown place of pride in my heart, I rooted for my husband the athlete.. the provider... the foundation.. the giver.. the partner.. the biggest fan of me.. and I knew what it meant to be this thing called family.