This morning, as I sat in the auditorium / lunchroom / gym at Ensign Elementary waiting for the Halloween parade to begin, I turned to Kelly and said, "This is not the life I expected".
I mean let's just take a look at my week:
Gus and Niko and I played football in the backyard. Gus is a natural quarterback - he has a great throwing arm but can't catch to save his life. After dinner we moved the game up to the park, where it morphed into one of the boys "hiking" the ball, Kelly or I handing it back off to them, and then chasing after them as they half screamed, half laughed themselves out of breath.
Then there was the snowball fight following the first real snow of the season (yes, to all the readers outside of the Mountain West - October is the start of snow season...). Gus relished being pelted by me as Niko sneaked up behind me to toss fist-fulls of snow at my butt.
And there was last night, when I carved our pumpkins - taking artistic direction from the boys - just as my dad had carved my pumpkins when I was a kid. Gus was uncontrollably excited about the mounds of candy he expects to receive, while Niko determined pumpkins go, "ooooooooooooh!" as he waved his arms around.
Tomorrow night I'll be dressed up at the request of the boys, so that all three of us can be vampires. I'll watch them go door-to-door asking for treats, watching how they handle the adults' not-all-that-funny question, "Where's my trick?", and I'll remind them to say thank you.
Yeah, thinking about it, this is definitely NOT the life I had expected. This one is definitely better.
Chris & I sometimes look at each other and in a raspy Hyman Roth voice (Godfather II) we cough out, "This (cough) is the life (cough) we have chosen." It's good to remember that this was a choice. It's not always the life we expected, sometime it does't even seem better than the life we had hoped for, but it's the life we embrace. I wouldn't trade the kids for anything. Chris might be willing to give them away for the right price.
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