Unknown Knowns

My brother and his wife recently had a baby. I know this, because I’ve held her, and heard her cry. And had her cry while I held her; I’m not great with babies. She’s super cute, and I’m thrilled for Ben and his wife.

However, leading up to the birth was like playing a game of Clue. My brother kept us all guessing. He would send cryptic text messages that were vague enough that you never fully understood what he was talking about. Not purposefully cryptic, he just usually doesn’t send complete thoughts. And perhaps outside of the context of “hey, by the way, any day now we’re going to have a baby”, I wouldn’t have jumped to the conclusions I did with each new text. But I think, without knowing it, my brother became the Dan Brown of 12 word messages. I parsed everything looking for hidden context.

I was walking through Target when I got a text message that read, “PAPI!”. And the first thing I thought was that the baby was born (at this point we knew the sex of the baby but not the name). And I nearly ran out of the store before I stopped and thought. First, when did my brother all of a sudden become Spanish? And more importantly, wouldn’t he give a few more details than that?

I racked my brain, finally realizing that the Red Sox were playing that night, and clearly David Ortiz (aka Big Papi) did something. Which is actually what had happened. But then later that night I get another message. This one, a picture of a dresser/changing table with the message, “And so it begins.” After which I received a call from my oldest brother asking me if the baby had been born. I assured him that no, there was no baby yet. I didn’t know that for sure, but I felt like I was getting better at deciphering Ben’s statements.

I was expecting to receive texts for the next week like, “This delivery is taking forever”, by which I would know he meant the pizza he ordered. My brother was like the boy who inexplicably cried wolf. As if he didn’t realize that putting together those sounds (wuh-oo-ll-fuh) he would have the townspeople running up the hill in no time. I don’t think he did it on purpose. And while I’d like to blame it on the stress of that week and the week that followed, I don’t think I can. I think he was just unaware.

It all works out in the end. They have a beautiful daughter, and the next time I get a message that states “She’s a pooping machine!” I think it’ll be safe to assume whom he’s referring to.