Last summer was a bust, of sorts. I mean, I became a mother, my husband and I finally started our own family, and that was BIG. It was momentous and joyous and I couldn’t believe we had brought such a precious little pea into the world. A new life; our daughter Sophia was born in the middle of the Midwestern summer heat. But socially, it was a bust. Learning how to care for a newborn is hard work and there is a bit of a learning curve, and little time left for anything else.
We stayed in….a lot. Showers? Sleep? Unless you can count bathing as the buckets of tears that rained down upon me and sleeping as that hour here and there between feeding baby, changing baby, bathing baby, rocking baby etc…
Suddenly, summer was gone. Gone baby gone. Fall flew by. And then…winter had come. The days felt longer and harder. I was officially a “SAHM”. I’d been inside too long! I spent more time than I’d like to admit thinking about the effort it takes to get a child ready to go somewhere alone. I’d think about it so long that it was either nap time or feeding time again and so… home we stayed.
Spring finally arrived in Cincinnati. I was getting pretty good at caring for this little girl of mine. Making her giggle became both the biggest challenge and biggest highlight of my day. It was hard to even take my eyes off her sweet sleeping face. But, getting out of the house still proved challenging. There was always a reason I just “couldn’t”. (You may be having a hard time determining who exactly the baby is here. I don’t blame you).
But then, something happened. Sweet, sticky, Cincy summer. It was back.
And with it…BASEBALL. Reds baseball. And…mustaches?!? That’s right, and HANDLEBAR mustaches to boot. 850 pound handlebar mustaches, placed all around the city, a throwback to the historical Mr.Redlegs mascot design. The Queen City was to host the 2015 All Star Game, and we were not taking this lightly. Along with the massive preparation effort that kicked off in January 2013 when Cincinnati was named as this year’s host, twenty-one giant mustaches in ten different designs were placed in popular spots around town.
I was intrigued and amused… and at long last, I wanted to get out of the house. I was finally ready. I packed up Sophie and a few snacks and headed to the West End to spend some time at the Children’s Museum at Union Terminal on a Wednesday morning. There it was: the first All Star ‘Stache sitting out front in all of its red shiny glory. It was our first “Sophie ‘Stache Sighting”. Seeing that kitsch piece juxtaposed with our gorgeous Art Deco museum made me chuckle. I plopped Sophie down in front of it and took a few photos and we spent the afternoon playing in the museum. It was a good day. It felt good to get out of the house and let Sophie crawl around to her hearts content. Later that day I realized something. I realized something that many will think is so silly. This museum mustache was the catalyst I needed to get me out exploring with my daughter.
June of 2015 started what I now call “Sophie & the Summer of ‘Staches”.
The growing excitement leading up to All Star Week was infectious. Cincinnati is steeped in baseball history and it showed. From the long list of art and educational exhibits (Freedom Center’s ‘Diversity in Baseball’ exhibit, the Museum Center’s ’Science of Sports’, the Reds Hall of Fame museum, and the Art Museum’s ‘Warhol and Baseball’ exhibit to name a few), the brewery and eatery scene (enjoy a Rounding Third IPA from Madtree and a Hustle at Rhinegheist in OTR if you’re in the mood for a baseball brew), and Fanfest at the Duke Energy Convention Center, there was certainly not a shortage of things to do. It seemed everywhere you looked our baseball spirit was alive.
Days with Sophie became more exciting. We spent an afternoon at Eden Park watching the ducks in the Twin Lakes ponds and watching the barges after snapping a photo of the mustache on display there. We walked along the riverfront in Covington admiring our hometown and the pillbox hat on the Scripps building from across the water. That sight, with the Roebling bridge in view, always makes me smile. She got her first taste of a splash park at Smale, holding onto her dada’s leg as the water got too close to her. She got soaked by the mist of the Genius of Water on Fountain Square. We enjoyed those amazing tots at Taft’s Ale House. July 1st was Sophie’s first birthday. We spent the day as a family at Findlay market browsing vendors and taking in the sweet and savory smells. It was there she received her very first dollar bill from a kind woman at a butcher’s counter. I marveled as she crawled around the lawn picking blades of grass at Washington Park with that grand view of Music Hall staring back at me.
This week I packed a picnic and her favorite ‘ball-ball’ and took her to Sawyer Point. We spotted a turtle in the high water covering part of Serpentine Wall as we stared out at Newport. People watching is one of her favorite pastimes, so after checking out the mustache in front of the Cincinnatus Statue, we sat on the Serpentine Wall steps and she squealed at other children as she ate her banana and grahams. I told her stories of how her ‘papaw’ used to bring me and her Uncle Dave and let us run around all day on those very steps. It was a perfect moment.
These mustaches may not mean much to most, but they have come to represent a lot for me. Through them, we spent weeks adventuring in and around the city together. On most of these outings, Sophie could care less about a giant mustache. She could care less about baseball. (She will like baseball and she will root for the Reds, make no mistake), but for now she mostly just wants to crawl and explore. The last few though – as she saw them, she startled babbling excitedly and waving her arms. She finally understood! My daughter has already seen more of this beautiful city in her one short year of life than I had in 30 years of my own. One day when she’s older I’ll be able to tell her this story and show her our adventures through this photo series of 21 mustaches.
Here’s to Cincinnati, to baseball, and to the 2015 All-Star Midsummer Classic.
Now we mustache you a question….
Is Todd Frazier the home-run derby king or the home-run derby king!!!!!!!!!???????
