Things I'm Grateful For - Part 4

See these incredibly handsome guys? You may not be aware, but you are looking at my entire cardiovascular system in the flesh. Without my heart and lungs, I cannot live. It's the same with my trolls -- I need them to live. Co-dependent? Perhaps. But it is what it is.

The Monkey and The Nugget - Chincoteague Island, VA 2009

I can see what I'm about to say coming back to haunt me by way of various future therapy bills, but that's OK. When I found out I was pregnant with The Monkey, I set up a therapy fund rather than a college fund. After all, the poor kid has me for a mother.

When I was younger and a hell of a lot less smart than I am today, I didn't want kids. Kids were nice from a distance, but that's where they needed to stay -- in the distance. To actually have my own kids would completely interfere with my life's plan to be the child my parents didn't want to talk about. In retrospect, I suppose having kids wouldn't necessarily nullify my dream of being the child my parents didn't want to talk about, but I didn't know that at the time.

About three or so years into my relationship with The Ex (who, by the by, is a drummer. All part of the aforementioned plan), I found out I was pregnant with The Monkey. This is the part of this blog entry where I should fill you in on back story, but I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that when I saw those two pink lines on the stick, after I was able to stop thinking "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" I listened to my heart and it said, "It's time. This is your child and we will love him fiercely."

Not quite nine months later, The Monkey was born (he looked like Curious George).

The Monkey is serendipity.

The Nugget was very much a planned child. Of course, The Nugget does things in his own way, on his own terms, when he's ready and he decided to grace my uterus with his presence precisely when The Ex and I decided to stop trying to have another baby & went about making other life plans. Because that's when he was ready to show up. He was also two weeks late and I had to forcibly evict him from the confines of my abdomen.

He's still like that. The school years are proving to be a challenge.

My trolls frustrate me, infuriate me, have caused me to go prematurely gray. If a day goes by that I'm not yelling at one of them for something, I mark it on the calendar.

But none of that really matters, because that's just typical kid stuff. We're all still learning about each other.

What does matter is the unique ability they have to melt my heart. They taught me what love really is. They opened me up to the all the possibility and potential in the world (I hope I'm returning the favor).

Today, I'm grateful for my kids.