3 : 435 : 6 : 1

Linnea-Irish had to reluctantly fork over her game ticket once again that day, for her last few hours filling ice cream cones down the street. Instead, it was Mom’s turn to join me on that little adventure downtown we like to call Busch Stadium. On that last cool afternoon in April, sun out, wind up. High above a green right field.

But first: adoption agency. More questions and explanations; papers; a call to Chicago; notary; visas; FBI and fingerprints; photos and a little stuffed Donkey in a gallon Ziplock shipped down to Yali … The to-do list was ever-expanding. Although signing papers with a good blue pen always makes the job a little more fun.

So – game time. Rookie on the mound. Team playing well, despite the loss of the ace (just having successfully finished surgery at a nearby hospital). Singles, doubles, home run, win, red fireworks. Good times were still rolling downtown in the month of April.

Then, parking garage traffic. Forty minutes waiting in the snaking line swamped with vehicles plastered in Missouri/Illinois plates. Mom napped for awhile.

When I rolled back up to the Big House, about six hours after first pitch, the front yard was swarming. Like ants out of an anthill. Puck and his posse. Today, they were entirely female. I think Eddie had Boy Scouts or something. A few more strolled through the backyard.

Inside, Puck eagerly led me to a large Tupperware of “junk”.

“The sisters down the road are moving to Texas in a few months,” Oxbear explained. “So they’re giving stuff away.”

And of course, my son – the ultimate Pack Rat – had to be a part of the gifting. However, I considered that since he had given away the majority of his baseball collection the day before, things could be worse.

“Look! The best piece of all!” He shoved what appeared to be a glass corn cob high into the air.

Indeed. He didn’t depart from the glass corncob for the rest of the evening. Even took it to bed with him.

“Rocket ship!” he announced, soaring it through the air, tucked in his covers after prayers.

Yali’s in for some big time imagination with Big Brother when he hits foreign shores.