Though both have had glorious moments in their high-profile careers, Patrick McEnroe and Melissa Errico would be the first to say that there is nothing like the joy of being together and raising a family in the city.

Before they became husband and wife, Patrick McEnroe and Melissa Errico were friends—beginning way back in the fourth grade, that is. (More on this in McEnroe’s interview.) In the 20 or so years between elementary school and the time they “re-met” and fell in love, they were each ambitiously pursuing their respective careers: McEnroe as a professional tennis player, and Errico as a musical theater star, described by The New York Times as “the voice of enchantment.” These days, McEnroe has become a ubiquitous figure in the world of tennis: as a commentator on ESPN, the longstanding captain of the US Davis Cup team, and the newly appointed general manager of the USTA’s Elite Player Development program, which seeks out and helps train up-and-coming players. And while Errico still performs as an actress and a singer of musical standards, this year her career took a magical turn when she released the album “Lullabies & Wildflowers,” which celebrates the experience of being a new mom—while also being one of the driving forces behind a special downtown moms’ group, Bowery Babes. Becoming parents to now two-year-old Victoria has been a life-changing adventure for both McEnroe and Errico. With twins due in November, it’ll be interesting to see if the next album is a double.

Offstage With Melissa…

Did you always envision that you’d be a mom?
I did not, actually. But a few years ago my OB/GYN said, “Are you ever going to have kids?” And I said, “Well, yeah, someday.”And she replied, “Well, you’re 34, you should think about it.” When you’re an actress on Broadway, you’re at the theater 24/7. It’s very demanding and consuming. It can kind of blind you to your own life. So after my doctor’s appointment, I was walking home, and I started to think about babies. I was listening to my iPod, and a Johnny Mathis song came on called “Something New In My Life.” And I thought, “Wow, maybe I do want this!”

What was being pregnant like for you?
For a long while, the pregnancy was really confusing to me. I gained a lot of weight, I was totally scared, I just wasn’t prepared. But then I was introduced to someone else in the neighborhood who was also pregnant—it was like a first date—and she said, “Let’s go to this prenatal yoga school in our neighborhood.” It’s called Lila Yoga. I went, and I started meeting other women having their first baby: it turned out that there were 12 of us living within blocks of each other who were due the same week! It was a beautiful and crazy experience—we’re all sitting around in various stages of discomfort while becoming great friends. It really changed my life. Then, as we were getting closer to our due dates—and some people were giving birth and moving on from the class—we realized that we didn’t want to lose touch.

These are the women you started Bowery Babes with?
Right, and those women told their friends, and now it’s up to 400 members.

Does Bowery Babes bring in speakers and offer classes?
Yes, all of it. We bring in speakers, we’ve had lectures on toilet training and sleep training, educational seminars, vaccinations—we try to address whatever is on people’s minds. We have story times at the local library, cooking classes with Whole Foods. And then there have been some crises. One woman actually lost a child from SIDS. We set up a fund with the New York Restoration Project, which is Bette Midler’s project, called Jack’s Trees. We’ve planted trees all over the city in his name, so he’s still growing in the city. It’s now an ongoing charity, with the trees going to Million Trees NYC.

I imagine Bowery Babes has been incredibly beneficial to you through your first years of motherhood.
In so many ways. But the obvious thing that comes to mind is when I had my miscarriage. I didn’t actually say anything for a long time, and then I made a small comment about it, and that I was going to head out of town to my mother’s house to quiet myself. I didn’t want any sympathy. I encouraged people, if they wanted to say anything, to just write to me so it didn’t become this whole public discussion. And I got flooded with e-mails from people who had the same thing happen, and how they dealt with it. The support and affection was so amazing.

How did your album about motherhood, “Lullabies & Wildflowers,” come about?
When Victoria was about 10 months old, I was approached to make a new album. Of course, the idea was to do jazz standards or theater standards in the same musical vein of my first record, “Blue Like That.” But when this producer asked me what was going on in my life, I started talking about Bowery Babes and motherhood and how sweet life was and is. And he just stopped in his tracks and said that there’s nothing I should be singing about but this: your heart is so full of compassion. Your heart is so full of Victoria. And I looked at him like, What? I couldn’t believe that he’d be willing to do this. It was a dream come true. Then my manager told me it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard of in his life, and I fired my manager.

Can you describe the album?
The CD isn’t really a lullabies record to put the baby to sleep right now...it’s drawn from that moment when you’re rocking a baby and your mind wanders, and you remember these classic songs, and the pictures of your youth kind of flash before you because your whole life is changing. There’s this song on the record by Judy Collins called “Since You Asked,” which has this wonderful lyric that I just had to sing: “As my life spills into yours, changing with the hours...” It’s the idea that the child is a piece of me, and we’re a continuum now. It’s those ideas that I wanted to capture. Also, playful thoughts—all the stories and make believe that you want to introduce your child to. And I tried to sing it in a way that’s really welcoming, where really tired moms can listen to it and just relax a little. When you’re a mom, you tend to put children’s music on and it’s really perky and folksy, and not at all soothing. I gave the album some rhythm—I don’t want moms to fall asleep!—but I tried to keep it relaxing.

Why “Wildflowers”?
The ultimate goal of a parent is to set your kids free and see them flourish—whoever they become. It’s kind of the subliminal message of the cover art too. The woman who drew the cover of my CD is in my group. She drew all of the flowers, and each flower represents the child of a different original Bowery Babe.

Going forward, what are your thoughts on how you’re going to balance your career as an actress and singer with being a mom?
Well, I like being involved in Victoria’s everyday life more than I ever could have imagined—and I’m sure the same will be true with the twins. So basically, I work part time. The great thing that Broadway has given me is a reputation as an interpreter of these classic musicals, and now I have this gig with a symphony tour in which I’ll be on the road for 24 to 48 hours, performing great musicals before like 3,000 people in Utah. And I’ve been trained by the dance captain to do all the dances, which has been great for my body, because I really got fat! This is not a Broadway dream, but it’s been a wonderful compromise—to be a mom, stay in shape, and represent these great shows.

What would you say are some of your biggest joys now with Victoria being the age that she is?
Making jokes. I ask her, “Can I talk to your chin, please? I need to tell your chin something.” And she knows it’s absurd, but she keeps laughing. We’re past that stage of just survival, eating and sleeping. Now we can horse around.

What is one of the best pieces of parenting advice you’ve gotten?
What I’ve gleaned from everyone is to savor this time because it will pass so quickly. I try to heed that advice. Also, I like the idea of not trying to guide your child too much: let her find her way. Be in her presence but let her explore.

Courtside With Patrick…

Has fatherhood surprised you in any way?
It caught me off guard in a positive way, just the feelings you have for this little person. Both of us were so focused on our careers for so long, and then, it’s a cliché, but things change. I can still remember those first few months…she was just a little thing, I’d look at her and I couldn’t believe it. Even now. She just gives us so much joy.

What are some of your favorite things to do with Victoria?
Well, my joy really is just being with her, experiencing with her, taking her to class. It’s awesome to experience the changes. Like in gymnastics—she used to go and she would just cling all over me; she didn’t want to go play with the other kids. And then about two weeks ago she just started doing everything with the group, really into it. It was like all the sudden it just clicked.

What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far as a dad?
It’s definitely been time management and my schedule. When I’m home, I’m around a lot; I’m very present. But I basically travel to go work. I’ll go to Wimbledon for two weeks, and it’s hard to leave Melissa and the baby, but it’s really hard on Melissa. Now that I’m starting this new job, hopefully, in the long run, I will not have to travel as much. I miss being around, and I don’t like even the thought of missing those tender moments you have with the baby by yourself, when you see that she really cares about her life, and she cares about you. She’s only two years old but, for example, if she sees that I’ve hurt myself, she’ll say, “Daddy got a booboo,” and she’ll come over and kiss my booboo. Just sweet things like that.

For a McEnroe, you seem pretty even keeled.
Even keel is probably a fair way to describe me from a personality standpoint, but at the same time I’m pretty passionate about what I do, as a dad and as a husband, and also as a captain and as a commentator. I’m a very positive person, the kind of person who thinks that things are going to be okay. I get that from my mom. I mean, right now, we’re going through all this flux. We’re trying to find a new place to live, I’m starting a new job, Melissa is pregnant and we’re expecting twins—that’s a lot to deal with, and that can be stressful. At the same time, I try to always exude that positivity to Melissa, because she also comes from a theater world where there’s a lot of criticism, and she has to deal with the ups and downs of that. It’s funny—she calls me Winnie the Pooh, because I think everything’s going to turn out okay. And she kind of says it in a way that’s sometimes a little bit of a dig, but at the same time it’s kind of who I am.

It sounds like you complement each other well.
I think so. She’s really helped me come out of my own shell. She’s very gregarious and opinionated and charismatic, and I’m more reserved. I think that growing up with John as a brother, I leaned very much toward a low profile because people would watch me and wonder, “Oh, is he going to be like his brother and blow up?” or something.

You said that you and Melissa “re-met.” When did you first meet?
Melissa’s older brother and I were inseparable best friends from fourth to eighth grade on Long Island, where I grew up. So to me Melissa was always the younger sister of Mike Errico, but as I’ve told her, I think I kind of had a crush on her even back then. The age difference between us is four and a half years, but she was always around doing spins and doing cartwheels and just being herself.

And how did you re-meet?
Melissa’s brother Mike is a terrific writer, but he’s also a singer-songwriter, and when I was home in 1996 after my shoulder surgery, I went to hear him at a gig downtown, thinking that maybe I’d run into Melissa too. I hadn’t really seen her since childhood, but my parents had been telling me for years that we had to meet up, and they kind of kept me in the loop about her Broadway career. So anyway, we all went out, Mike and his buddies, me and Melissa and—we laugh about it now—we had absolutely nothing to talk about, nothing in common, except there was some kind of connection. We ended up going to the Corner Bistro in the West Village and having a cheeseburger at 3 AM. I called to ask her out on a date the next day, and we’ve been together ever since.

Do you have any role in Bowery Babes, or are you just an innocent bystander?
They throw a Christmas party every year, and guess who’s Santa?

With Victoria, are you sensing the makings of a tennis player or a star of musical theater?
She’s got a lot of energy, I’ll say that. Obviously, I don’t think either one of us is going to push her in either way, but she’s going to be exposed to both. When Melissa does her shows and her concerts and things, I say to her, “Where’s mommy?” She says, “She’s singing.” And if Melissa turns on the TV and people are playing tennis, Victoria says, “Daddy’s there! Daddy’s there!”

McEnroe with the Davis Cup team in December 2007. (Getty Images)