Happy July!

L.W.!

B.W. here.  Just checking in.  How are things going in there?  I know you're feeling a little cramped.  Your momma is, too.  We are both anxiously awaiting your arrival, so please hurry!

How am I doing?  Well, I'm currently somewhere that you will become familiar with very soon.  Your home...and more specifically, your chair!  I'm sitting in the chair where your mommy and Gangi and Nana will rock you to sleep.  And me too, of course!  It is so very comfortable.  Your mom picked it out, and it is a magic chair.  It can put anyone to sleep, no matter how much they fight it or how awake they seem to be when they sit down in it.  This may aggravate you at first, but I promise that you will grow to love it as much as your mommy does.  Well... I promise you'll grow to love it a lot.

So, anyway, I'm sitting here in this chair and I just realized that we are about to close the books on June. Just another hour or so.  That means you are almost certain to be born in July!  I have a friend named Scott that believes not in celebrating birthdays or birthweeks, but instead birthmonths. Why celebrate for 24 lonely hours, when you can go a full 30 days!  I like it.  And you will, too.  So Happy July!  It's a great month to be born in, and you get to share it with some really special friends.  Your Nana Mel was a July baby.  So was your cousin Jackson.  And last but not least, you get to share your birthmonth with your country!  Yep, the United States was born in July, too.  Your dad cannot wait to teach you all about it.

Best of all, though, July is MADE for little boys.  If a month could be a person, July would totally be a little boy, and truth be told, he'd probably be your bff.  You see, July is nothing less than a clean slate.  It's a month made for you to fill, and nobody can pack stuff into something like a boy.  June is busy with finishing school and getting your summer started off with a bang, and August is when people get frazzled trying to cram that last bit of fun in before the drudgery returns.  But July, son... July is lazy.  That's not always a good thing, but for July, it just works.  Days upon days where little boys wake up and see nothing but a blank canvas.  Let me tell you, it's amazing how much happens when there's nothing else to do.

Do you want to know what July was like when I was a little boy?  I would wake up practically at a dead run, throwing on shorts and a shirt and tennis shoes.  Inevitably, I'd be called back to brush my teeth.  Tie my shoes.  Eat breakfast.  Ugh...everything my mom could think of to slow me down.  When I FINALLY made it outside, I would meet up with my friends and we would play baseball.  Where was always an adventure.  Equipped with only a couple of tennis balls, one aluminum bat, and a set of orange plastic bases, we had to be pretty discerning.  A backyard might work, but the thicket right of first base ensured that any foul ball over there meant game over.  The street sometimes was decided on, but a tennis ball will roll forever on asphalt, and besides, what's a home run with nothing to hit over?  The ideal spot for us was a vacant lot a block away.  It was perfect.  A neighbors storage shed provided a backstop for errant pitches.  A small row of 20-foot pines in left provided us with our own Green Monster.  The only drawback was the Rottweiler that was usually chained up at the house next to the lot.  He wasn't friendly, and more than once he wasn't chained, and we'd be chased back all the way back to our house.

When we weren't playing baseball, we were playing golf.  Your Nana would drop me off at the course, and I'd be there until dark.  We would walk 18 holes, have lunch, and then walk some more.  Sometimes even a setting sun couldn't dictate the end of our day.  I remember receiving more than one lecture from a worried parent after putting out in what could only generously be called twilight.  After making it home for a quick dinner, me and my friends were back outside, stringing up the floodlight to illuminate the basketball goal in our driveway.  We knew that the thump-thump of that rubber ball on the pavement of my driveway had to drive our neighbor lady crazy, but we didn't care, and you won't either.

When it was really hot, a dip in my friends' pool was the only cure.  I remember passing the requisite half-hour after dinner, and thinking that somehow the clock was actually moving backwards.  When you ask me why I am making you wait, Coop, I'll tell you it's because you'll cramp.  But really, it's just because I had to.  I have no idea.  Sorry, pal.  If I had to wait, you gotta wait.  It builds character, or something.  We'd play Marco Polo and have cannonball contests and run around the outside of the pool and jump on each other...everything that the lifeguard will blow his whistle at you for, which happens to be all the fun stuff.

When I got a little older, we'd follow swimming up with Spades.  I will teach you how to play, L.W.  And then me and you can beat your mom and whoever she can wrangle up to be on her team.  It'll be a blast!  Anyway, I remember sitting in my friends' house, playing spades at the kitchen table.  The open window behind me pushing a sticky breeze into the room that was still somehow refreshing.  It smelled like summer and competed with the popcorn in the microwave for olfactory dominance.  We would drink Coca-Cola and eat salty popcorn and play cards until what would be way, way past my bedtime in the school year.  Finally, I would sprint home, precisely the length of three front yards, and bolt breathlessly through the front door.

After a night chock full of energy-renewing sleep, I'd awake the next morning to a chasm of opportunity only a hazy, lazy July day can present.  A day so open and free that it could only be met with one initial thought:  Where did I take my shoes off last night?


I hope you enjoy your birthmonth as much as I do, L.W.!  I can't wait to celebrate it with you every year!

I love you!

B.W.