A is for Angus
Because well, duh. My Alpha baby (who is SO not an Alpha male, which thank all the gods), the one who made me a mom.
I never try to write dedicated posts about my kids because I suck at them. I am bad at sentimentality (ask my husband), and of course everyone thinks their kids are special and wonderful. So I'll just tell you some things about him.
He is kind. When he was two years old he would get me a pillow for my back when I sat down on the floor to play with him. When he started playing hockey, the first time he knocked a kid down, he skated over and tried to help him up (in all fairness, he did get over this impulse quickly).
He is witty. At three-thirty or so, I was usually in the kitchen when I heard the front door open, and I would always yell "which kid" because they got home at slightly different times. Once he yelled back "the slightly dumber somewhat more athletic one". I texted to show him I got a shirt with baseball stuff on it once and said 'I got a new shirt' but there was a lag before the picture posted and he replied 'I would hope so, once in a while'.
He is smart. In grade ten he got the highest mark in geography, which resulted in him getting to meet MICHAEL PALIN, which was of course wasted on him and he didn't even mention it until we saw it in the community paper. He graduated from high school and university with top honours while playing a lot of baseball (although there were kids who did hockey AND baseball, and I don't know how that is even possible with anyone in the family keeping any degree of insanity - I remember one playoff baseball game where some kids would slide into home and keep running and land in the backseat of the family car to be driven at breakneck speed to hockey tryouts).
He is humble, sometimes annoyingly so. He led his baseball team to the Little League World Series. He was chosen to attend the Man Up city workshop, an initiative aimed at combating toxic masculinity, and the letter we got specifically said it was because he was a leader in his school community. When I met one of Eve's friends and he found out who her brother was, he looked at me in awe and said 'you gave birth to ANGUS?' And then once when Matt was telling him that he could do something because of his leadership qualities Angus said 'Dad, you're crazy - no one sees me as a leader'. Dork.
He is a dope. Matt texted him a job opening with the Toronto Blue Jays and Angus said "wow, looks right up my alley. How the heck did you find it?" Matt said "I googled MLB jobs". (I just realized I am using quotation marks and inverted commas inconsistently and with no rhyme or reason. I'm too lazy to go back and fix it). There was the time he showed up to have lunch with us at the hotel the day before his graduation and realized he was too hungover to come to lunch so had a nap in our hotel room instead. And then started the gathering that night with a shot of limoncello.
This was my Facebook status update when Angus left for school after Christmas holidays his first year away at school: "Matt and I took a hands-off approach to Angus getting his shit together to go back today (he got picked up by a teammate fairly early this morning). A hands-off you're-old-enough we-trust-you (even though you had friends over until midnight) approach... This was a mistake." (He left an immense pile of stuff behind, including a glove and two bats. While returning to the school he SPECIFICALLY WENT TO TO PLAY BASEBALL).
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