Tyler's Baptism & Telling Nonna and Pappy

Luckily, we had this trip planned to go up to New Jersey so we could tell Mom and Dad Sharpe in person that we were having a baby! Otherwise, we may not have seen them until September (for Tommy Franklin’s wedding) or November (for Meeting of the Minds) so this trip was just perfect! Since we were flying into Philly so late at night (we were supposed to arrive in Philly at 10:45pm), our plan was to head to Lehman’s apartment to hang out with him and his girlfriend, Steph, and spend the night there. We ended up not getting in until after midnight and finally arrived at Lehman’s apartment at almost 1am. They were troopers and stayed up with us for a couple of hours, but eventually we had to go to sleep. It was great to meet Steph, don’t screw it up, Lehman!

We got up early and headed to meet our friends, Gerrie, Paul and Dex for brunch. We were in for such a treat, Gerrie is a chef and went all out for an amazing brunch. It was a lot of fun to hang out with them for the morning, and Gerrie and Paul gave us lots of pointers on staying sane during the pregnancy. Gerrie also gave me “Belly Laughs” by Jenny McCarthy which is hysterical so far. And Dexter couldn’t be cuter – if I wasn’t already pregnant, I would really want to be after that morning, he is the sweetest, happiest baby and you just want to love on him all day. But of course, we had to go, so we headed to T.J.’s parents house.

On the way, we debated as how we should tell mom and dad about the pregnancy. It was Mom’s birthday yesterday, so we bought a birthday card for “Grandma” and signed it from “the baby”, but we couldn’t figure out when to give it to them. We had early dinner plans at Maggianos for the seven of us (Jay, Tracey, Mom, Dad, me, T.J. and Tyler) but we hadn’t quite worked out when we would give Mom her gifts.

When we got to Mom and Dad’s house, they were hanging at the pool with Mom Mom and Pop Pop. Mom Mom and Pop Pop were heading out that night with a lot of the Sharpes to see Mark Cucinotta’s dinner theater rendition of Dirty Dancing, so we wanted to wait to tell the 'rents after Mom Mom and Pop Pop left because we weren't sure when to tell the extended family. We had to work fast, because if I wasn’t drinking, our charade would be up quickly. Dad had already given me a dirty martini as I was getting ready (poor T.J. drank it for me) so we knew we had to do it pretty soon after we sat down for dinner.

Of course, we were in a rush to get out the door and make the dinner reservation, so T.J. had the great idea of giving Mom her presents at the restaurant. One of the gifts was a wine glass, so when Dad told T.J. just to leave the presents in the car for after dinner, T.J. thought quickly and said that he wanted to give Mom the wine glass for her to use during dinner. Giving Mom the gifts was a little awkward, it is a family style restaurant, so there were a lot of servers at and around our table, bringing the wine, bread and appetizers. Also, Mom missed seeing the card in the bag, so T.J. had to dig it out for her. The card said something like "Happy Birthday Grandma" on the front, and inside I wrote "Looking forward to meeting you on March 17, 2010 even though i love you already Nonna! Love, Grandchild #2 on the way!" :)

She was speechless and they were so excited. T.J. actually got it on video, it is too cute. Dad was crying and hugging the waiter and everything, and of course Jason and Tracey were excited for us too. It was awesome, all of us were pretty happy! Of course, soon after came the complaints about us living so far away in Flaw-rida LOL

Sunday, we got up early and headed to Tracey and Jason’s to get some pictures of Tyler before the baptism. We bought a picture frame as one of Tyler’s gifts, so I really wanted to get a great picture of TJ and Tyler for the frame. Tyler is adorable to begin with, but that day he was the happiest I’ve ever seen him, he was smiling ear to ear and just awesome. I got the greatest pictures, and couldn’t decide when the time came to pick one for the frame, so we printed them all.

Church went really well, Tyler was so good, like he knew it was his very special day and he was just perfect. T.J. did great in his Godfather role, though a practice run wouldn’t have hurt. We headed to lunch at a great Italian restaurant, and Tracey was so sweet to bring alcohol free wine for me to drink at the lunch. T.J. and I had debated about telling all of the family of the pregnancy (I was just shy of 6 weeks at this point), but it seemed like the right thing to do with so much of our family in the same spot, so we decided to wait until the end of the luncheon to start telling the family - even though a couple of T.J.'s cousins already knew (their maternal instincts must have kicked in, or they noticed that wine). Everyone was so excited for us, it was so wonderful to be able to share it with everyone in person. Overall, it was another wonderful weekend! Although I don’t recommend the alcohol-free wine, I’ll stick to club soda with lime, thank you!

9/11 - Eight years later, a remembrance

Eight years ago already? It's hard to believe it's been that long. That Tuesday was one never to be forgotten, especially to those of us living in and around NYC. At first, it was an unknown novelty, Ali coming downstairs at our place and saying "A plane just hit the World Trade Center!" My reaction? "Wow, no shit, that's kinda neat", thinking one of the many tourist planes had mistakenly veered far off track. Still not the most compassionate of reactions, I know, but hey, it's just another odd occurrence in the world's most interesting city, right? Yea, we had no idea...

Ali and I turned on the TV about 2 minutes before the 2nd plane hit. One look at the fire from the first impact, and my novelty idea was quickly subdued. Something bad had happened. We saw the 2nd impact live on TV, about 2 miles away as the crow flies from our living room in Hoboken. The talking heads on Channel 2 were still debating the first incident - was it a plane, a bomb, a helicopter, etc... when everyone saw what happened next. A 767 loaded with innocent people and combustible jet fuel barreled into the South Tower. Innocence vanished. A feeling on safety was gone, replaced by an all-too-real sense of vulnerability. Lives were lost... luckily, no one I knew well, but many friends would not be able to say the same when they woke up Wednesday.

Somehow, I got a call out to my Dad letting him know I was OK (riding my bike over to my office in Jersey City, watching the towers burn the entire way) and Jody got a call into Ali, probably the only two we were able to make before sundown. Jody's was the call that broke the news of the 4th crash to us, which hit nearly as close to home - Shanksville, where his parents' lakefront cabin was located, a quiet town of 245 permanent residents in the hills of southwestern PA, was the final resting place of the heros of Flight 93. At that moment, nothing seemed safe.

In the hours and days and weeks to come, the gravity of the attacks sunk into you, something you couldn't just scrub off in the shower. Everyone I knew in the area was affected. Ali and I made a list of those we knew that may have been in the WTC area, and started walking around Hoboken ringing door bells. Somehow, we crossed almost every name off the list in just two mile-long laps around the town; guys I worked with like Posty and Tony just happened to drive by us, or someone she knew we ran into at the park, watching what was now a solo tower burn, and that person had talked to another one, who knew that these other people were safe, and so on. The stories started to come out as those closest to the towers began to return to Hoboken, dust covering their suits, a dazed, rattled look on their face, unsure of what the hell just happened and just how close they'd been to the afterlife.

One of my best friends - Ninja - finally made it home, with a heartwrenching story of helping a fire fighter try and locate his mother amidst the panic in the area that is now known as Ground Zero. Another good friend - Lori - I had convinced to take the WTC train in from Hoboken that morning, rather than try and drive to her meeting on Wall St. from Fort Lee. She *should* have been well clear of the Trade Centers before her 8:30 meeting, but I didn't know until Ali and I pit-stopped at 90 Grand between laps, and she (and a coworker) popped out of our living room, startling the shit out of us. Never have been happier to have my heart nearly stop. In retrospect, my occasional laziness may have saved me, since I was going to head over on the WTC train with her to do some quick Christmas shopping for my Dad that morning, and would have been in the building across the street when the planes hit. Thank God I valued some extra sleep over a $20 Century 21 gift card that was about to expire.

Hoboken lost more people to 9/11 than anywhere else, save NYC. Something changed that day to our little yuppie bar town. Fliers for missing Marsh McLennan employees were posted on lightpoles. A makeshift memorial at the tip of Sinatra Pier appeared, with an empty Financial District skyline in the background. Cars collected tickets until someone put 2 and 2 together. Ruins smoldered, and trucks carted away 220 stories of more than just metal. Friends gathered, watching the coverage. Mark and I went to Manhattan the next day to try and do something - anything - to help. There was nothing to be done. The Red Cross blood donation line was 3 hours long, and, as it turns out, fairly useless to those directly impacted the day before. Ambulances lined the West Side Highway, waiting in vain for survivors to be miraculously pulled from the wreckage. The city was eerily quiet, like someone had taken the hustle and bustle and madness and transplanted it to a location far, far away. There were almost no cars in the streets, and nearly everyone who passed by had the same solemn look.

The feeling of helplessness was pervasive - indeed, if there was one word to describe that entire experience, it would be helpless. Helpless to stop the attacks, helpless to keep the Towers upright, helpless to rescue those that clung to the outside of the Tower, ninety stories above the ground but only a few dozen feet over a roaring, impassible inferno. We tried to get to Manhattan on Tuesday, to do *something*, but by the time they opened up limited train and ferry service on Wednesday, the only thing left to do was pray.

Eight years later, we are still praying, for the lives of those we lost that day, for the brave men and women from the FDNY and the NYPD, for those whose lives still go on with a daily reminder that a loved one isn't coming home again tonight, for nearly the 3,000th time in a row. For all of those, and for the millions of lives that have been affected in the 9/11 aftermath, we continue to pray, for you, for the ones you love, and for a better world, so that something good might silver line this date for years to come.

Tyler's Baptism Weekend

July 17, 2009 – Tyler’s Baptism and telling Nonna and Pappy that Grandchild #2 is on the way!
Luckily, we had this trip planned to go up to New Jersey so we could tell mom and dad Sharpe in person that we were having a baby! Otherwise, we may not have seen them until September (for Tommy Franklin’s wedding) or November (for Meeting of the Minds) so this trip was just perfect!

Since we were flying into Philly so late at night (we were supposed to arrive in Philly at 10:45pm) our plan was to head to Lehman’s apartment to hang out with him and his girlfriend, Steph, and spend the night there. We ended up not getting in until after midnight and finally arrived at Lehman’s apartment at almost 1am. They were troopers and stayed up with us for a couple of hours, but eventually we had to go to sleep. It was great to meet Steph, don’t screw it up, Lehman! :)

We got up early Saturday and headed to meet our friends, Gerrie, Paul and Dex for brunch. We were in for such a treat, Gerrie is a chef and went all out for an amazing brunch. It was a lot of fun to hang out with them for the morning, and Gerrie and Paul gave us lots of pointers on staying sane during the pregnancy. And Dexter couldn’t be cuter – if I wasn’t already pregnant, I would really want to be after that morning, he is the sweetest, happiest baby and you just want to love on him all day. But of course, we had to go, so we headed to T.J.’s parents house.

On the way, we debated as how we should tell Mom and Dad about the pregnancy. It was Mom’s birthday yesterday, so we bought a birthday card for “grandma” and signed it from “the baby”, but we couldn’t figure out when to give it to them. We had early dinner plans at Maggianos for the seven of us (Jay, Tracey, Mom, Dad, me, TJ and Tyler) but we hadn’t quite worked out when we would give mom her gifts.

When we got to Mom and Dad’s house, they were hanging at the pool with Mom Mom and Pop Pop. Mom Mom and Pop Pop were heading out that night with a lot of the Sharpes to see cousin Mark’s dinner theater rendition of Dirty Dancing, so we wanted to wait to tell Mom and Dad after Mom Mom and Pop Pop left because we hadn’t decided if we should tell the extended family or not yet. But we had to work fast, because if I wasn’t drinking, our charade would be up. Dad had already given me a dirty martini as I was getting ready (poor T.J. drank it for me!) so we knew we had to do it pretty soon after we sat down for dinner.

Of course, we were in a rush to get out the door and make the dinner reservation, so TJ had the great idea of giving Mom her presents at the restaurant. One of the gifts was a wine glass, so when Dad told T.J. just to leave the presents in the car for after dinner, T.J. thought quickly and said that he wanted to give mom the wine glass for her to drink out of during dinner.
Giving mom the gifts was a little awkward, it is a family style restaurant, so there were a lot of servers at and around our table, bringing the wine, bread and appetizers, so there was a bit of commotion. Also, mom missed the card, so TJ had to dig it out for her. The card said something like "happy birthday grandma" on the front and inside i wrote "Looking forward to meeting you on March 17, 2010 even though i love you already nonna!" love your grandchild #2 on the way!" :)

She was speechless and they were so excited. TJ actually got it on video, it is too cute. Dad was crying and hugging the waiter and everything and of course Jason and Tracey were excited for us too. it was awesome! :)

Sunday, we got up early and headed to Tracey and Jason’s to get some pictures of Tyler before the baptism. We bought a picture frame as one of Tyler’s gifts, so I really wanted to get a great picture of T.J. and Tyler for the frame. Tyler is adorable to begin with, but that day he was the happiest I’ve ever seen him, he was smiling ear to ear and just awesome. I got the greatest pictures, and couldn’t decide when the time came to pick one for the frame, so we printed them all. :)

Church went really well, Tyler was so good, like he knew it was his very special day and he was just perfect. T.J. did great in his godfather role, though a practice run wouldn’t have hurt. We headed to lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant and Tracey was so sweet to bring alcohol free wine for me to drink at the lunch. T.J. and I had debated about telling all of the family of the pregnancy (I was just shy of 6 weeks at this point), but it seemed like the right thing to do with so much of our family in the same spot, so we decided to wait until the end of the luncheon to start telling the family. Everyone was so excited for us, it was so wonderful to be able to share it with everyone in person. Overall, it was another wonderful weekend! Although I don’t recommend the alcohol-free wine, I’ll stick to club soda with lime, thank you!