How to be a boy mom

Go Knicks, Midlifers!

I woke up Sunday morning to an emotional text from my youngest after midnight to share that his team had just won an NBA championship and I gotta say, I’m glad it’s over. I hated waking up this past week and being afraid to look at my phone when I woke up to see if the team had won the night before. It was so stressful (but maybe less stressful than watching the actual game).

I loved waking up to that late-night text from my son — somewhere out celebrating — and then scrolling way longer than I should have through Instagram to see how the Internet (or at least my corner of it) rejoiced over the Knicks’ win.

This might be my favorite:

A few times during the Knicks’ slow roll to the NBA championship, one of my two sons had posted a pic of their much-younger selves wearing jerseys at a game we all went to in 2013. They had lost to the Heat and we were literally in some of the last rows of MSG but my sons had gotten to see LeBron play in real life wearing their brand new jerseys I bought for them before the start of the game.

I had found myself navigating a sporting event alone with my two young sons in 2013 when they had both complained to me separately that I never did stuff with just them. While my two daughters and I went shopping or got manicures together, “You never do boy stuff,” the boys, who are 10 years apart in age, had said.

But doing “girl stuff” just came way easier to me. I was, and still am, such a girly girl, which made being a girl mom super easy. My daughters and I would often disappear to do things that my sons had no interest in, but they also felt left out. They wanted to feel special, too.

So in 2012, after a few official years as a single mom, I decided I’d give them tickets for the three of us to see a Knicks game for Christmas. At the time, my younger guy was 11 and still in middle school but my oldest son, 21, was away at college so we had a very slim window of home games to choose from before he headed back to Virginia for the spring semester.

I had bought many tickets to Broadway shows over the years, but navigating a sports schedule seemed very foreign to me. What teams were good? Who would my boys like to see? Also very important, how was I going to afford three Knicks tickets, which were all over $100 apiece, which was a ton to me back then.

I ended up taking a stab in the dark and buying three tickets to a Miami Heat game in early January and when the boys opened the elaborately wrapped boxes I handed each of them Christmas morning, they jumped for joy when they saw the tickets I’d printed out and folded carefully inside.

We took the 90-minute train from our town in the New Jersey suburbs to Madison Square Garden and made our way out of the cavern that is Penn Station to the entrance of the famed arena, passing men trying to sell tickets to that night’s game and fans starting to trickle inside. There’ were some counters selling Knicks merch at the bottom of all the escalators that feed you up into the stadium and as we walked by, I asked the boys if they wanted to stop and look. It was still early and the boys could walk right up and look at all the hats and jerseys and they quietly surveyed all the options and my older guy elbowed his little brother to look at something under the counter’s glass top.

I had been really excited for this moment. Historically, we were not the kind of family who bought things at any kind of event or outing. When we went to Disney World, it was understood that no one was getting anything. As much as my older daughter longed for one of those fans with a princess image on it that sprayed mist, if she wanted it, she’d have to buy it for herself. Don’t ask for candy or popcorn or anything to drink at a movie, we’d already packed microwave popcorn and juiceboxes from home.

As they were looking, I stood behind them and asked, “Which ones would you pick?” And they each pointed at different players’ jerseys. “Should we get them?” I asked, and they shook their heads incredulously.

They’d both thrown on orange long-sleeved t-shirts to wear to the game and as we took the long elevator into the stadium, they threw their new jerseys on top and the looks on their faces was worth everything. They were just so happy.

We continued to take a lot of escalators up to pretty much the roof of MSG. Despite the cost of those tickets, we were literally in the nosebleed seats but that did not dampen my boys’ enthusiasm. Before the game, I had them pose together to take that photo that is so emblematic now for the three of us of what a great night it was, despite the Knicks losing to the Heat. And while I remember very little of the actual game—other than buying them the jerseys—my younger son told me this morning he remembers every minute of that night. Even that we’d left before the fourth quarter to catch an earlier train home and that during the long ride, the Knicks came back from a significant deficit and that we were all kicking ourselves for leaving early. But, true to Knicks form back then, they ended up losing in the end.

I bought the boys tickets for Christmas again the following year and we saw the Knicks beat the Bulls and were again seated up in the rafters of MSG, but still had a great night together. I took them out to dinner before the game to some Times Square sports place and we all ate red meat and french fries and it felt very boy-coded. It was just for us. No girls allowed.

When the Knicks clinched the championship on Saturday night, my youngest son was out a bar with his hometown friends and the pictures of them celebrating were epic. The joy on their faces so pure.

I woke up Sunday morning to those texts he sent after midnight.

Clearly, he was having a night. But also, it reminded me how important those games were to him so long ago. During a really chaotic period in our family, that memory of the game and the new jerseys has been something that he’s held onto all these years. I am so grateful that I was able to step out of my comfort zone and buy those tickets and take them to that game that mostly consisted of my oldest leaning over and explaining everything about the team and the players and sometimes, the game of basketball. That I showed them that I was interested in what they were interested in. That I was willing to meet them where they were.

I think it’s probably why we all love going on theme park vacations together as a family (other than it bringing opportunities to heal old wounds). It’s a place where we can all come together in a shared interest. Thrill rides is something we can all agree on.

I wish I had more pictures from that 2013 Heats game. I wish there was one of the three of us sitting together, packed in the middle of a row near the top of MSG. I want to say I sat in between them but now, I’m not so sure. In the picture, I am. The Knicks have just scored and the boys’s arms are raised in the air. Their jerseys are so new looking, the orange numbers still pop, long before they’d been washed a zillion times. In the picture, you see me sitting in between my sons, smiling. Surrounded by my boys. Happy to be their mom.

Go Knicks.

xoAmy