I thought Char was going to post something today, but she says the thing she was writing is running too long and she not only is not done with it, but now isn't sure she can post it because of the length. She's also not sure she's going to let me read it. I think if a wife uses a husband's journal for research purposes and then writes a very, very long un-blog post, he should be allowed to read it.

But I don't get a vote in that.

She may be writing about her dad's new girlfriend. We haven't met her yet, but it's not settling well with Char that her father is seeing someone just a year older than she is.

Me, I'm laughing my ass off about it, just because it bothers her ;)

Fair Warning: potentially adult content

Funny friends I have, already with the phone calls where I pick up and hear One, two, three... And I'm not really surprised, because my friends are immature freaks only capable of picking out the potentially most embarrassing thing I'll ever admit out of a heartfelt post. Luckily, I like my freakish friends and don't care if they think it's funny. It is now, even though it wasn't then.

So, yes, counting to five. I have no shame in admitting it. I was 22 and had been building that moment in my head for ten years. I honestly did expect that I would rock her world, not leave her asking what the hell just happened? Looking back, I think counting to five might even be stretching it, and that was after my cork popping before we even got our clothes off. The only marginal saving grace in that was being 22, and when you're that young and have been waiting to get laid for eight years and you cream your shorts at the idea that in less than a minute you'll get to see BOOBs!, all you need is a tiny bit of understanding and three to five minutes.

Not to say we didn't have fun on our honeymoon; we did. Anything that happened outside the hotel room we had a blast with. Anything happening inside was a huge blow to my ego, made worse by the fact that I had never considered how horrible sex was going to be for my new wife even if I'd had a clue what I was doing. You'd think that after dating for eight years we'd have been able to talk about it, and that she would have been comfortable enough to sock me on the arm and say 'Hey, this hurts, you moron. Take it easy,” but we weren't.

If we'd had the Internet then I probably would have (stupidly) gone looking for answers there, but what I had were friends who would have laughed their asses off, a brother who'd been nailing anything he could for years and whose answer to everything was drink more, and my father. Hell, he laughed, but not at me. Da laughed at my naivety, and the sheer earnestness with which I approached him. I really thought there was something wrong with me, not that I was just an excitable newby in need of some serious practice.

I took his word for it, and his advice to just keep trying. The world rocking took another five or six months to accomplish, and I'm fairly sure my ex stopped referring to me (behind my back) as her Minute Man by then. And yes, that's five or six months in search of what I was beginning to think of as the mythical female orgasm. Keep in mind we were both raised in fairly strict Catholic homes, hers far more strict than mine. If she knew how to help me, she was too shy to say, and I was too stupid to ask.

Hell, I was too stupid to ask her to try things I was curious about, and I hadn't remotely considered that anything I might want her to do to me she might want me to do to her. Not until my brother made an offhand comment and the thought shot through my head I'm expected to do WHAT? That (use your damned imagination) was not something in the approved Catholic list of sex techniques, because that was not leaving “the act” open to conception, and being the good Catholic boy I was, I was all about leaving it open to conception.

That wasn't even a conversation I could have with my wife. If we weren't talking about my miserable carnal failures we sure as hell weren't going to talk about that. And we didn't, not until we'd been married for a good five or six months and during a (very not serious) argument I spouted off with Blow me and she countered, Okay.

All right, go back and re-read, and I'll wait for the light bulb to go off over your head. Not coincidentally, that's about the time the rocking of her world commenced, and I learned to relax and not make it all about what I could and couldn't do.

So it might have taken me longer than average to learn a little control and not finish before she even got started, but I never forgot how much I initially sucked at sex, especially later on when it wasn't a matter of the blind leading the blind, but the blind being lead by a very happy guide dog. And Char knows I'm writing this; she's laughing her ass off, probably because she never had to suffer through my less-than-a-minute-man phase, or even the woohoo-I-lasted-more-than-two-minutes! phase.

Let's see how much she laughs when it occurs to her that I just told the world that she entered this relationship as the blind one.

But I will say it didn't take her any time at all to rock my world.

Quick learner, that one.

My father was a believer in preparing his kids for the things they would face as they got older, as much as his experiences would allow him to teach. He answered the questions that he could, even when it embarrassed him, and he admitted it when he just didn't have the answer. There were roadblocks he never could have seen coming—my sister announcing her pregnancy at not quite 18 at the dinner table, like it was an expected and welcome event, my brother's ongoing fight against addiction—but he did the best he could with the resources he had. And through everything, he protected my mother against the things that would upset her the most or break her heart.

She couldn't be shielded from the birth of her first grandchild (and after the shock and anger had worn off, his birth was welcomed and celebrated) but she never really knew the scope of my brother's problems; she knew he had anger issues and blamed herself (I still don't know why) and she was somewhat aware that he was better off not drinking, but she never knew how many times he was in rehab or to the extent his instability ran. She never knew, because my father bent over backwards to make sure she was never too hurt or too upset by the stupid things her children did.

I never quite understood this as a teenager, when I realized what he was doing, though as an adult I can appreciate his efforts even if I think they were sometimes misguided. She'd had one major emotional devastation early on in their marriage, when their first baby died just days after being born, and it cemented his determination to protect her from whatever other pain he could.

Women, he told me frequently, are to be cherished, and they are to be adored. This was something he gently pounded into my brother and me, and to my brother's credit he did believe it and treated (until he fell completely into addiction) the women in his life very well. He will screw with my head as much as he can, but he is very nearly tender with our sister; I don't want him speaking with my sons on the phone, but I know that if my daughter answers, he won't pull any of his bullshit. I think the only woman he has ever mistreated is my ex-wife, and that only because she chose someone else over him when we split. He had hopes that there was the possibility of a relationship there, and she dashed them. But, that's a long story in of itself.

I learned most of my parenting skills from my father, I think. He was tough when we screwed up, tender when he needed to be, and always available to talk with. There was nothing I couldn't ask him, from simple things like how to tie my shoes when I was 4, religious musings at 8, sex at 14, marriage when I was 22 and headed down that aisle.

His guidance didn't end when “I do” came out of my mouth; if anything I found I needed to talk to him more often. As a teenager I knew everything and didn't ask him nearly as much as I could have, but as a newly married young adult, I was confused half the time and he was the one I turned to. Sometimes he laughed (Aye, what? You expected to be any good the first time? It's the blind leading the blind, son. You'll get better at it and she'll stop counting to five soon enough.) but mostly he reminded me of what was more important. Cherish her, son, everything else will follow.

I failed more than I succeeded, obviously, but I always believed that he was right. This is one thing I want more than anything to pass onto my children; I want my daughter to grow up knowing that she is worthy of being loved that deeply, that whomever she ends up with will only be the right one if he does cherish everything about her, and adores her in spite of the few bad days that everyone gets. I want both of my sons to have this as a fundamental part of who they are; I want it to be hardwired into their DNA, that they don't just treat women with respect, but feel that women deserve every bit of it.

Lately, I've come to understand how difficult it probably was for my father to drive that point home without beating my brother and me over the head with it. I see Alex with his girlfriend, and all I can do is hope that he's learned this well, and that he doesn't fall into the same indifference that some his friends seem to have. I never want him to view any woman as just someone to hookup with; I want him to step back and take the time to get to know them.

Just because I took the (unusual, even then) route of waiting until I had married, I don't expect my kids to. But I do want them to wait for relationships, and as archaic as it sounds, for their own sakes I want them to wait for love. Alex at 14 is no where near ready for that kind of relationship, but if he's still with Stephanie when he's 16, I won't be happy about it, but I'll understand it. If I'm honest with myself (and with him) I can admit that my 16 year old self would have happily had sex if my ex had been willing.

In the same light, I don't want him to think it's all right to walk away if he thinks he's ready and she isn't. If he cares, he waits, and if he's that far into a relationship that he's seriously considering sex, then he cares.

I don't want Rachel to ever believe a line like You would if you loved me.

And in a more complicated situation, I don't want Kevin to wallow in the confusion I'm fairly certain he's headed for.

I think Alex has the right ideas in his head and in his heart; he and I argue and are at odds a lot, but he treats his mother with considerable respect, and he's protective of Rachel and gentle with her feelings. I'm not worried now about what he pushes his girlfriend to do; I'm not sure about six months from now when he'll be sure he loves her. I don't doubt that he does; I doubt he realizes it's not enough.

My father was right; I will never do anything more important than raise these kids. And while he never said it outright, I know that most of what success I will have as a father is dependent on my success as a husband, and I know it because he lead by example.

I never doubted how he felt about my mother, and I could see it between then every day. He adored her, something that was obvious even when they were fighting, and he cherished every moment they had together. When she died I thought it would break him, but to give into that would, he said, be a betrayal to her. He intended to honor her even if he mourned her.

That is grace I'm not sure I have, but how I feel about my wife is no secret. And how I feel is something I want our kids to see every day; I never want them to doubt that their mother is loved beyond reason, and that without her I would be empty. I want them to see this not just because of the truth of it, but because if they see it everyday, then hopefully they'll know it's what they deserve, too.

A week from now, we'll be somewhere in the vicinity of a view much like this one, celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. We're headed back to the same place we spent our honeymoon; back then, neither of us had a clue how to strap a ski on, much less how to get to the top of the hill and then down. Since then we've both learned to jump on the ski lift and then get down the hill without too much drama. She's better at it than I am, but that doesn't surprise me because she's better at everything. I'm used to being bested and to losing.


She never tells me ahead of time if she's really good at something. The first time we shot a game of pool she neglected to tell me she'd been playing from around age 3, and that her father built a fame around the pool table so that she could reach it. You don't want to challenge her to 9 ball, unless you enjoy being humiliated. When we decided to bowl in a league, she never mentioned that she had an average around 180, and had come close to a perfect game once or twice. When she wants to do something well, she damn well does it well.

Skiing is no different. We took a one day how-to course, and she was instantly good at it. I, on the other hand, fell on my face a few dozen times, and it took a while before I could manage anything other than the bunny slopes.

But, skiing isn't the reason we're going; we're going because we wanted to go back to where it pretty much started, at least from a matrimonial POV. Even though we had eloped, I wanted her to at least have a decent honeymoon, and a cabin in the woods during winter was something I could arrange on short notice. I rented what I thought was an upscale cabin with a hot tub; what we got was a one room cabin with a whirlpool bathtub. She never complained (I think she had other things on her mind) and once in a while has mentioned wanting to go back. So we will.

This time we do have much better accommodations (I made sure of the hot tub; forget the kinky possibilities, she still needs it to keep from stiffening up) and a killer view of the lake, and I suspect this time around we'll actually see more of the sun and will try to make a few runs down the hill, depending on how she feels.

The day we get there will be 7 months since her accident, and if I'd had the presence of mind to consider it then, I wouldn't have thought this trip would even be possible. I don't care if we ski, I don't care if we have sex or not, I don't care if all we do is sit there and rake in the view; we made it to fifteen years through her considerable willpower and tenacity to live, and a grace I can only assume comes from something bigger than either of us.

And no, you can't come with us.

There just might be sex, and I don't need an audience ;)

All Rachel really wanted for her birthday was clothes and to be able to wander around the mall without a parent trailing behind, supervising without being too obvious about it (yet also without looking like some pedo creeping up on her; it's a balancing act.) I'm not at all comfortable with cutting her loose in the mall alone, even with a couple of her friends; I know she can defend herself and I know she can inflict considerable damage on someone, but I'm not as sure about her ability to ferret out someone's intent, and I'm very much aware that having the ability to defend oneself doesn't mean one walks away unscathed.

Statistically, she's safe and can shop without anything happening, but she's my daughter, not a case of statistical probability. While I think that a year from now I may feel a little better about letting her wander the mall unsupervised, I'm not there yet.

So I was conflicted about what she wanted, an afternoon of shopping without one of us around. I trust her; I don't trust other people.

Then Alex proposed a solution, and it's his birthday gift to her. Today we'll pick the kids up from school, and drop Alex and Rachel off at the mall, armed with cash and gift cards. They're meeting two of Rachel's friends, and one of Alex's; the boys will keep an eye on them (I don't care how sexist that sounds. Alex is protective of Rachel and his friend Evan is clear headed and a very mature 15, but most of all no one will mess with the girls with those two around) and they'll all have more fun than they would if I was trailing behind, even out of earshot.

What makes this a terrific gift for Rachel is that Alex thought of it himself and made all the arrangements, and didn't tell her until this morning. He greeted her with Happy birthday, Dill! and then told her what he wanted to do for her birthday; she lit up but doubted we would allow it until Char said I was on board with the plan. Alex and Evan agreed that she could shop anywhere she wanted and there would be no moaning or groaning about it, and they would even stand there and hold purses while the girls were trying on clothes.

I think he has no idea what he's in for.

Char's only worry about Alex's plan was that Kevin would feel excluded, but he has a dance class today and is excited about being there because Elizabeth is going to be there for her first non-ballet class and if Elizabeth (he says her name in italics; I think it's true love, without horny intentions) is going to be there, so is he.

After we pick the kids up we're meeting Brad, Erin, and the rest of the fmily for dinner to celebrate Rachel's 13th. Twelve people, and how much you want to bet I get stuck with the check?

And holy hell, my little girl is a teenager.

I now remember what 12-14 year old kids do at parties, and I wonder why my parents never ended up needing hearing aids. Between the loud music, sound of videos games, and kids talking as loud as they can, squealing, and laughing, my ears will be ringing for the next week.

The good news is that Rachel throws a very good party; the bad news is that all those kids now know that we have the space for that kind of party, and we have a pool. I envision my summer to be one long mass of kids hanging around this house.

When our daughter was very young, he would sit on the floor and let her brush his hair into spikes, tipping them with rubber bands.

He let her smear makeup on his face, and sat through dinner with one eyelid coated in blue eyeshadow, the other in green, his cheeks bright red with blush and lipstick on his chin, and acted as if it was perfectly ordinary.

Because I had no idea about imaginary tea parties, he bought her a tiny set of cups and a teapot, and introduced her to the concept of quiet afternoons with imaginary friends, and he spent hours talking to dolls and stuffed animals, just because it made her laugh.

When she was five and too excited about the idea of going to school to wait, he sat with her on his lap and taught her to read, and the first time she read an entire page to him without prompting, he held her close and danced her across the room.

At her first piano recital, he cheered. At her last, he was moved to tears.

Tonight, the boys were with my dad, so it was just the three of us; he helped her with dishes after dinner and I left them alone in the kitchen, where it took them nearly an hour to do something that should have really only taken fifteen minutes. I could hear them from the living room; she was chattering on about her friends and school and her upcoming birthday party, and he listened patiently, laughing when he should and not asking the questions I know he wanted to.

Before we were married, when we were getting to that place where we both knew that we weren't dating just to date but that we were heading towards marriage, and had gotten the nerve to discuss kids, he admitted that more than anything he wanted a daughter. He wasn't worried about having boys to carry on the family name; his brother had seen to that, and he just wanted a little girl.

Lately he's realized that having a little girl really does mean that one day he's going to turn around and find that she's not little anymore, and someday she'll turn to someone else instead of him, and I think it breaks his heart just a little.

But he has something that all her future boyfriends and future spouse don't; no matter what, she loved him first. And no matter what, she'll always love him.

Kevin was fairly adament about shopping for his sister's birthday present himself; he claimed to know exactly what he wanted to get her, and he had to pick it out himself to make sure it was "classy."

I'm not a fan of shopping but I wanted to go just to see what he considered to be classy. Char could have taken him alone and vetoed anything inappropriate (he once tried to buy edible underwear at Spencer's because it was a funny looking fruit roll up) but I really wanted to see him in his shopping glory (a love he shares with Rachel.)

He asked to be taken to the mall, and headed straight for the Disney Store.

This, in Kevin's head, is extremely classy:

I have to say, I do not disagree. I think his sister is going to love it.

Char woke me up at seven this morning with a slap on the ass and a too-cheery Get up. I made Kevin a doctor's appointment and he has to be there by eight. She was already dressed and ready to go, but I needed a few minutes and a cup of coffee to reach coherency. The kids were dragging their asses around the house, too, which made Char's good mood all the more irritating. She kept me up until two, so she should have the common decency to be half awake, too, I think.

She took Kevin to his appointment while I took Alex and Rachel to school, but just as I dropped them off she called me; Kevin is fine and can go back to school tomorrow, but the pediatrician wanted to discuss evaluating Kevin for his potential adult height.

I had no idea how we got from just wanting to know if he was contagious still to how tall will he be, but I headed for the doctor's office and waited among the booger laden and coughing kids for the doctor to have a few more minutes to talk to us.

Long story short, Kevin asked him for the fifth time (after the usual weigh and measure; he's grown a tiny bit in the last couple of weeks) how tall he was going to get. It's a major worry for him; he's not exactly obsessive about it, but close to it. Either the doctor is tired of being asked, or because Kevin brings it up every time he's there, he thought it was time to give Kevin some actual information instead of a ball park guess. I have not been in favor of even guessing, hoping he'll come to understand he can't change what he'll grow to, but Char thought it was time to end his personal torment.

After getting information on Kevin's birth parents (requiring a call to Brad to double check on the birth father's height) his forearm and leg were x-rayed, and we waited while all the information was relayed to a pediatric endocrinologist. The wait gave us time to take him to lunch and discuss how he would feel about the outcome, and to make sure he understood that no matter what the endocrinologist said, he could end up taller or shorter, and it really didn't matter if he was barely five feet tall or taller than I am. He said he got that he probably would never be as tall as Mom, or even Rachel, but he just wanted to know.

Fair enough.

When we went back to the doctor's office he was a little wound up, but he sat very quietly in the exam room while we waited a little bit longer. The doctor, one of the reasons we like him, talked to Kevin and barely to us, and explained that the endocrinologist would do more detailed measurements later, but based on the spacing in his growth plates, his biological parents' heights, his environment, how much he's grown in the last year, and nutrition-obsessed mother, he could probably expect to reach between 5'8"-5'10".

Even with further measuring off the x-rays, it'll be just a guess, but Kevin thinks he can live with the idea of being a little bit shorter; all he wanted was to be average.

Somehow this news called for celebratory homemade cookies; I won't argue with his logic, because hell, cookies.

My father was given to bouts of hyperbole; it was never "a nice day," but 'tis a glorious wonder of beauty and sunshine. The people he dealt with as a cop were not merely "stupid" they were fookin' idjits headed for shite and Satan. His way with words naturally drew people in, to listen carefully so that they didn't miss the meaning hidden behind the lilt of his brogue.

The first time he held baby Alex, even though he had five other grandkids, he was quiet and looked at his grandson for a long time before he offered, You will never do anything more important than this. It was a moment as gentle as he ever could be, but as he handed Alex back to his mother, my father looked right at me and said, Don't you be fockin' him up, now.

I worried about just that when Alex was a baby; I'd babysat my niece and nephews, changed diapers and dodged spit-up, but I'd never been a father and never responsible for the most important thing I would ever do. Still, in the back of my head I knew that as he grew up, I would at least have the experiences of having been his age to draw from; I knew some of what he was facing and feeling, and could identify with it. I intended to teach him the things my father taught me, some of it seemingly archaic, some of it common sense.

Then seventeen months later came the daughter I had always wanted, and my father's advice was the same: Jaysus, don't you fock this one up, boy.

With Alex he had been mostly kidding; with Rachel he was not.

She went with me to the bookstore this afternoon; Kevin wanted a couple of new books, and because he couldn't go pick them out himself, I went looking. Rachel came with me because, as she put it, It can't be more boring than staying home.

I cut her loose once we were there; I knew where in the store she would be and I wasn't that far away from her. She has common sense on her side and can scream at an ear-splitting decibel if she needs to. Browsing books without Dad breathing down her neck seemed safe, and was only fair. I wandered around the kids-but-not-kids section and she headed for what I thought was young adult teenage pseudo-romance wrapped in vampire lore. I don't grasp the entire sparkling vampire thing, but she's been "dying" to read the books, and now that she's pushing thirteen, Char said she could buy the books.

I picked out two books that were recommended for Kevin and went looking for my daughter, but she was nowhere near the overblown Brooding Edward display. Neither was she picking through the starter-romance books I guessed she might be browsing. I wandered through the store, and found her in science fiction, leaning against a bookcase, giggling and flirting horribly with some gangly, squeaky, hormonal teenaged boy. It wasn't enough that she was actually giggling, she was farking batting her eyes at him, and my first thought was to grab the greaseball by his shirt collar and tell him to get the hell away from my daughter.

Jaysus, don't you fock this one up, boy.

I may not be able to crawl inside my daughter's head, but I could sure as hell crawl inside this kid's and I knew something he didn't: she's just practicing. He thinks she's interested; she just wants to see how he's going to react. She knew I was nearby, so flirting with him was safe, and if he didn't respond, oh well. Dad is easy and I can at least talk him into ice cream or something.

I left the hornball alone and spoke only to Rachel. Five minutes, Half Pint. I'll be in the cafe.

Fifteen minutes later (to my credit I did not make an issue out of that) she met me in the cafe, carrying thick book. I wanted like hell to grill her about the kid, but I managed to keep it to his name and where she knew him from (holy hell, she'd never met him before) and then asked her about the book she wanted to get. Yes, it was Twilight. Surprisingly, she only wanted to get the first one in case it "sucked."

On the way out she told me that I might want to read it, too, because Kevin wants to and someone should make sure it's appropriate for him.

So my 10 year old son wants to read vampire romance.

I can hear my dad now. For the love of God, son, don't you dare fock this up.

Sooner or later I'm bound to really screw something up with one of the kids; if it turns out to be one of the boys, I have confidence that I can fix it. But if my first real fuck up is with my daughter, I'm not as sure.

It's coming, too, I can feel it.

Kevin wanting to read about a sparkling vampire pedophile won't be it; he is what he is, even if no one is sure what that is yet. Alex and I butting heads too hard, might be it. But my daughter? That might break my heart worse than hers.

Kevin has been enjoying his illness, taking advantage of not being allowed to go to school yet not feeling particularly sick. Tonight, however, he realized Rachel's birthday party is in one week (birthday in 9 days) and if he's not fully recovered, he doesn't get to be here for it. If he still has unscabbed blisters, he's going to Grandpa's, just in case not all of Rachel's friends have had it.

Normally he'd be happy with spending the night at Grandpa's, but he likes being around his sister's friends; he's also a bit intrigued because this will be her first party where boys are allowed, and some of Alex's friends will also be here. If they're both here having fun, he wants to be, also.

(I'd go to Brad's with him, but I'm not leaving Char to handle a houseful of squeaky, hormonal kids alone. No, I don't trust the boys. I was one of them once.)

On Rachel's actual birthday we had planned on a family dinner out, but she's already told Char that if Kevin is still sick she doesn't mind if we do something at home; I'm just hoping that he's fine by then, and that no one else comes down with it.

A bottle of wine, soft music, fire in the fireplace, candles lit...and then an itchy kid barging in to ask if he can use our tub to soak in an Aveeno bath because his brother is hogging their bathroom.

It's not like I would say no, but damn.

There's been quite a bit of grumbling going on in this house about sick kids and how they should behave (like a sick kid) but Kevin doesn't really feel bad; he's itchy and hits the wall around 2 in the afternoon and gets cranky enough we're sending him to his room to lie down (where he swears he's just going to read but he falls asleep for at least an hour) but he doesn't feel sick.

He's bored and bugging his dad for things to do besides watch TV and do the homework Alex brought home for him. Ian is complaining that a ten year old should be able to keep himself amused, but he's not factoring in the fact that having Dad home while sick is new for Kevin. He knows what I'll do with him and what I expect him to do for himself if he's up to it, but Dad is entertaining. Dad might grumble, but he'll get down on the floor and build things out of Legos and K'nex, he'll help with the homework, and he'll read stories and take a stab at video games. But the best thing I've seen over the last couple of days is Kevin sitting on his dad's lap at the piano, plunking out notes. He's never been particularly interested in taking piano lessons, but without Alex and Rachel around to hear, he wants Ian to at least show him some scales and a simple song.

This is why I don't want Ian to go back to work; he's never had this kind of time with the kids before. He's always made major efforts to give each of them undivided attention, but he hasn't had a lot of these moments, at least not as many as I know he would like. Before my accident he was close to each of the kids, but they've all become so much closer in the last few months. And to see him nearly move Kevin to tears with his playing Moonlight Sonata--I'm not even sure were I'm going here with this, but that was incredible. Until today I don't think Kevin realized that his dad can actually sing, too, and that he was almost as interested in dance when he was in high school as Kevin is now.

They probably have another week together unless one of the other kids breaks out and has to stay home, too. Ian is going to grumble the entire time, but he's having way too much fun for me to take him seriously.

A very small part of me suffered the delusion that with the return of TK's ex might come a repair in the friendship between her and Char; they were best friends for years, working together in D.C., and when we moved, Becky soon followed. She accepted a somewhat lesser job in the agency's local office because they were miserable without having each other to lean on and laugh with. While I didn't think Char would exactly forgive her for the things she did to TK, I know she has missed that friendship and thought that given time and some serious work on Becky's part, there was a chance.

They saw each other today for the first time since Becky packed up their kids and left, and one of the first things out Becky's mouth was What the hell happened to your face?

So no, I now don't believe that's a reparable relationship.

And it's a good thing I don't hit women.

All right, if he can tell the world he thinks I have the hots for Dr. Oz, it's only fair to tell the world he has wood for Jillian Michaels.

The man who cannot sit still to watch 15 minutes of TV and on whom most pop cultural references are lost, loves this woman.

He forces himself to sit here on Tuesday nights by holding his computer on his lap (or perhaps that's today's version of Updike in the lap?) so that he can get his weekly dose of Jillian.

Oh, he likes Bob Harper and appreciates what he does, but I swear, I think he drools every time Jillian is on the screen.

I used to think it was her body, but I've come to the conclusion that he's fairly sure she could kick his ass, and he likes that.

He likes that a lot.

Alex is old enough to figure out when he needs to go to bed and he's old enough to suffer the consequences in the morning if he makes a bad decision. Rachel knows she could stay up as late as Alex tends to, but she also grasps that she needs more sleep and in order to have a less stressful morning, she willingly goes to bed by 10:30. Kevin has a bedtime. He's 10; we don't negotiate with him on it. By 9:30 I expect him to have showered, brushed his teeth, put on something reasonable to sleep in, and have his scrawny ass in bed. He will "forget" to see what time it is and has to be prompted every night at nine to head for the shower; I don't blame him. It sucks to be the youngest, knowing everyone else gets to stay up, and you know everyone is waiting for you to be asleep before the real fun starts.

He drags his ass, but he doesn't usually fight it. But last night, holy shit, that kid fought bedtime. He headed for the back of the house when told it was time to get ready for bed; half an hour later Char realized she hadn't heard the shower go on, so I got up and went to see if he was all right. He was sitting in the middle of his bedroom on the floor with a comic book. Oh. I forgot.

Half an hour after that, I couldn't reach the clean towels.

Then, But I'm really hungry. Can I get a snack first?

At some point we heard water going through the pipes, and went back to the things we'd been doing. Char was absorbed in a book and I was distracted by any one of a hundred things that distracts me every day; after a long span of quiet she looked up and mentioned that Kevin hadn't come in to say goodnight. And this kid will not go to bed without getting a hug and a kiss.

So I got up again.

And found him sitting on his bedroom floor again, still wearing the clothes he'd been in an hour earlier. The sound of the shower had come from Rachel's bathroom, and she was already in bed. Oh. I was waiting for Rachel to be done so there would be hot water.

I gave him ten seconds to get up and get his ass into the bathroom; he got up.

Ten minutes later there was still no shower running, but he claimed he was "in the disposal" (indisposed) and would be in it in a minute.

Twenty minutes later he was standing in front of the mirror in his underwear, still unshowered, and it looked like he was counting freckles on his chest. Alex stepped in and told Kevin to hurry the hell up because he wanted to take a shower, too. I threatened to shove him under the water in his underwear--and that's when Kevin completely lost his shit and started crying.

And damned if the kid didn't verbally bullet list his complaints.

• It's not fair, Alex and Rachel never had to go to bed that early
  
• he wasn't dirty and didn't need a shower
  
• why were we so mean?
  
• he was hungry
  
• he was thirsty
  
• he wanted to read
  
• and on and on
  

I experienced a fundamental lack of sympathy and by then my only goal was to best this kid, get him into the shower and then into bed. I did not care about why he was still up; I cared about his blatant defiance, and the crying only pissed me off. Alex walked off, grumbling about using Rachel's bathroom, and Char came down the hall to see what the problem was. Kevin flew at her, still crying, and threw his arms around her, wailing about how mean I was being. As soon as her skin made contact with his, she looked at me and sighed, and said, He's burning up.

Way to make me look like an asshole, kid.

In the face of a 102.4 degree temperature, she decided the shower could wait, got him to brush his teeth (just by asking), dosed him with Tylenol, picked him up and tucked him into bed, and then sat with him until he was asleep.

This morning he looked just fine, but a bit sleepy. Still, we kept him home because those freckles he was counting--those were actually tiny blisters.

The kid has chicken pox.

Shit.

Char has the hots for this guy. Dr. Oz. She won't admit she has the hots for him, but she records his show every day and if you threaten to erase it before she has a chance to watch it she will threaten your gonads with horrible things.

She may like him a bit less after today's show on vulvadynia.

Alex dropped onto the sofa with a book in hand right after she'd turned it on, and Kevin was stretched out on the floor trying to master a little long division. She couldn't get to the remote fast enough before Dr. Oz carefully blurted out "Vulvadynia" and "sex during pain;" Alex barely looked over his book and said I'm guessing that's not a problem for you.

Kevin was looking at the TV and asked What's that?

Alex answered easily, Female crotch pain.

She sighed, tossed the remote at me and got up with the parting shot, You get to handle this one.

But, there was nothing to handle. Kevin was satisfied with Alex's answer and went back to his math homework, and Alex needs no affirmations beyond his guess.

It did mean I got to watch the news, so there's that.

Alex and Rachel were on the sofa playing a video game, and Kevin was waiting his turn to play the loser. The noise level had jacked up a few notches but not enough for me to say anything, when Alex stood up, craning over with the controller in his hand, and he grunted, "Move faster, Pickle!"

Simultaneously:

What did you just call me?
What did I just call you?
There's not a pickle in that game.

Char explained to them that when Rachel was born, Alex couldn't quite say her name and somehow pronounced it as "Pickle." He stopped sometime around 3 years old so it's no surprise that neither of them had a clue why that popped out of his mouth. I thought Rachel would be embarrassed, but she found it funny, and her brothers spent a few minutes trying to figure out what kind of pickle she would be.

Not sweet, that's for sure.
Gooshy like relish?
No. She's kind of sour but we like her anyway. Like a dill pickle.

They've spent the rest of the day calling her "Dill" and I don't know why, but she likes it.

Six people testing, three of them my own kids; it could have created an awkward situation that smacked of favoritisim, but went smoothly, and all of the students did well. There were a few iffy moments with our third dan candidate when he spaced on a few moves in his form, and when sparring with Alex he held back a little too much, but he was also testing with a migraine that has plagued him for five days. Dack and TK were well aware of this, and those few misteps did not detract from the opinion of the instructors from an associate school; they found his skills to be adequate, and passes him.

That there was more than one guest judge (for lack of a better term) surprised me. Dack was concerned about the possible perception of favoritisim because half the students testing were my kids, and he asked for two extra additional black belts to sit on the panel.

It took three hours to run them through everything, starting with a two mile run and ending with each of them having to spar me for three minutes. For the first time, all students passed. Usually there's one person who lets the nerves get the better of them and either drops out partway through or just doesn't reach down deep enough, but today they did.

I'm still not completley on board with allowing 10 year old kids to test for their black belts, but Kevin and Jaime did well; if they continue on remains to be seen.

In any case, Kevin and Rachel both earned their first degree black belts, and Alex nailed everything for his second.

To celebrate, we're taking them out for pizza and video games tonight, along with their grandfather, cousins and aunt, and probably a few friends.

Tomorrow, I'm sleeping in.

I would have preferred that the kids take today off from working out; a down day before the test would have been a good idea, but they were not happy about it and wanted "just an hour" to run through the techniques they were least confident about. We garnered promises that there would be no complaining when I said it was time to stop, and Char dropped us off. The kids and I headed into the dojang and she headed to the gym.

Routinely, the person closing up the dojang at night turns the heat down. We walked into a damned hot house today; I suspect TK told one of the students to turn it down and the thermostat's lever got pushed in the wrong direction. At that point I should have told the kids it was an omen and called Char to come back and get us, but they talked me out of it.

Fifteen minutes and it will cool off. We have shorts and t-shirts, we don't need to wear doboks for this.

Now, many years ago I lost a female student because I was in the dojang working out alone, out of uniform. I was wearing spandex shorts and nothing else; I had not locked the door and she wandered in, and for whatever reason was horribly offended. She went off on me as if I'd dropped my pants in front of her, and ended her mouth-frothing diatribe with I have half a mind to quit!

I pointed to the area behind her and said the door was right there.

Anyway, I should have remembered that today. Five minutes into warming up, both boys stripped off their shirts and the a-shirt Rachel wore was not much better. When the door opened I was on the other side of the dojang trying to find a CD I could tolerate for the kids to work out to, and Alex was helping Rachel stretch; her foot was on his shoulder, and he had her by the shoulders to help her maintain balance.

I can only imagine what it looked like to the parents of a potential student who walked in then; they stepped through the door, spotted my nearly undressed kids in (to the untrained eyes) an inexplicable position, and as they turned around and headed out I heard him spit out, There's no way in hell I'll let her go here!

I locked the door.

Char returned an hour and a half later and we took them out to lunch and then home, where we were vilified for telling them to watch TV or play video games, but there would be no covert practicing in bedrooms. Invite friends over, hell, I'll fire up the grill and feed them, but no one goes anywhere.

Tonight they all went to bed early; by 8 pm they were each in their rooms reading and the house was quiet. By 10 all their lights were out.

By this time tomorrow they'll be done, and like Char said yesterday, I hope they want to take a break from all activities for a while. We all need to rest. Or it might only be me, but I'm old and need the nap.

Watching the kids get in this last week's worth of workouts before their test on Saturday has been quite telling in the differences between them.

Kevin is excited; to him this is fun, and he wants to earn his black belt mostly because he senses the parental pride that will come with it, in spite of our efforts to not let them think that we find the rank-chase a worthy effort. We don't. We've tried to make sure over the years that all the kids see that we value the art itself and the progress they make, not whatever color happens to be hanging around their waist while they're in class. But he knows that when (not if; he's incredibly confident) he passes the test, we'll both be very proud of him. And we will; perhaps not because it's a black belt, but because he's embraced his training willingly and has earned every belt he's tested for.

Rachel wants to earn her black belt, too, but her approach is more like "if I pass, I pass; if I don't, life will go on." She's training extra this week, but she's not killing herself to find perfection; she understands that she's either already developed the skills she needs or she hasn't. If she falls short, there's always the next testing cycle, or the one after that, if she wants to continue with it. I think she does, but she's also looking forward to being a more typical student, only setting foot in the dojang two or three times a week. This isn't her passion; she enjoys it, but she wouldn't be crushed without it.

Alex wants to pass this test more than anything. He's training hard; he was willing to spend all day at my dad's house working but he still wanted to hit the dojang afterward to work out (but to be clear, because this is so important to him the work on my dad's house is suspended, and he'll help after school starting next week.) His intensity is incredible; Ian takes all the kids to the dojang in the morning, I pick up Rachel and Kevin after 90 minutes or so, and he stays with Alex to work for another 2-3 hours. Where the kids all want to get it right, Alex wants to touch perfection, and he wants to understand every movement, both in action and reason.

All the kids get that part of the reason we gave them no choice about training when they were younger is that we wanted them to have an understanding of self defense, and we wanted them to develop a habit of physical activity. That Kevin finds it fun was a bonus, and that Rachel understands that it's not her life, but a small sliver of it is wonderful. But Alex wants something more from it; he found it fun when he was younger, too, but he wants to step beyond that and beyond being able to defend himself. He's embracing the discipline that comes with getting beyond that first degree black belt; he wants to analyze it and he wants to develop the control that comes with taking it seriously.

When this test is over on Saturday, it really will mark a change in our lives. We've asked the kids to carefully consider the schedules they want to follow, what activities are most important to them, and which things they won't be heartbroken over not being able to do, because honestly, with three of them and two of us, they may not get to do everything they want because we can't be in two places at once. I do know that we won't be taking them to classes at the dojang every day; there will be dance lessons, swim team practice, baseball, and other things that capture their interests. But on Sunday we'll sit down with them and start trying to figure out who gets to do what, and when, and try to make it as fair as possible. I suspect the things they choose will be as diverse as they've shown themselves to be. Kevin will go for whatever is most fun for him, Rachel will bounce from activities that suit her whims at the time, and Alex will choose whatever he can use to develop the most focus and control.

Before we get to all that, though, I hope they take a break, because I think Ian and I need a nap.

Alex and I had lunch together today after spending the morning working on forms. Watching him eat these days is a true WTF? kind of thing and I'm not sure how he fits all that food into his stomach at one time, but it's also a bit fascinating at the same time. And I'm not sure how we got from What kind of pizza do you want? to religion, but we got there in short order.

How mad would you get if I decided I wasn't Catholic?

I wouldn't. (He's at the same age I was when I started picking apart the faith in which I'd been raised. I never voiced those doubts to my parents because they weren't just Catholic, they were Catholic. Any doubts I had would have been, I was sure, their personal failures.)

What if I didn't want to go to church anymore?

I'm not sure. You would have to have incredibly compelling reasons beyond wanting to sleep in later on Sundays.

I don't think the pope is infallible.

Neither do I.

I think women should be allowed to be priests.

So do I.

And priests should be allowed to get married.

So do-- (he got me there; he knows I'm conflicted on that particular issue, and he knows why.) That one is open for debate.

I don't think birth control is a sin.

I had a vasectomy. What does that tell you?

Why are you still Catholic then, Dad?

Unlike myself at his age, Alex has a firm grasp on what he believes; he worries that it contradicts the things he's been taught as he's grown up and that his mother and I will be crushed if he takes a different path.Our goal was never to raise kids who towed the line because we told them to; we've always wanted them to come to faith on their own. I don't care if he chooses to believe in something else, as long as he believes.

I'm not sure if I can articulate to him why I'm still Catholic, and why it was important to me to raise my kids in the same church I was raised in. But I can tell him that even Mother Theresa had her doubts, and they're prefectly normal. I can tell him, too, that I don't think there's anything wrong with setting aside the things you simply cannot agree with and embracing the things with which you do agree.

Someday he may find something else that meshes a bit better with what he believes, and we won't give him a hard time over it. Or someday he may find himself in the same place I've found myself, unable to pray without genuflecting, turning to the familiar when the shit hits the fan because that's what's deeply ingrained, reciting the Rosary because the numbness won't let anything else come out.

Until then, however, he's dragging his ass out of bed every Sunday with the rest of us.

I've been taking a lot of crap about my gray hair lately. It started with the kids, egged on by their grandfather (who, fuck him, is nine years older than I am and barely has gray at his temples), and now my friends are getting in on it. I don't mind terribly, because the kids think they're funny and my friends aren't being dicks about it. It's more like the commiserate because they're just as old as I am, if not older, and they know this is where they're headed. If they're not already turning gray, they have the aches and pains of getting older, the health risks of rising cholesterol and weight gain, laugh lines and crow's feet. Even my beautiful wife (and shut up, I'm not being saccharine, she is and you know it) isn't happy with the fine lines starting to develop around her eyes.

Still, I am annoyed that I look older than I am. I'm 48; I look mid-fifties. When she sighed about what for her truly are laugh lines, I reminded her that I've been offered a senior discount more times than I care to consider, and a few times have been mistaken for Kevin's grandfather. While my friends are in the same boat, it's a little painful.

I expected her to brush it off; my annoyance with my gray hair and increasing number of wrinkles doesn't lessen how she feels about those few tiny lines, any more than Dack's arthritis and increasing pronounced limp makes me feel better about the gray. It's a damned vicious cycle. But she didn't brush it off; rather, she became quite serious and reminded me of when this all started.

Fifteen years ago, I looked younger than my age.

Fourteen years ago, Alex was born.

Thirteen and a half years ago, I came very close to dying from Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Thirteen years ago, in early January, Char had surgery in hopes to save her pregnancy with Rachel.

Thirteen years ago, in late January, Rachel was born nearly six weeks early.

Thirteen years ago, in March, my mother died unexpectedly.

Thirteen years ago, in April, just shy of my 36th birthday, I had a heart attack.

After that, my hair went from strawberry blond to an odd mix of that and brown, then the gray began to show. My life had stress before, but that one year took an unbelievable toll on me. I aged, and not well.

There have been serious stressors in the years since, but nothing other than Char's accident comes close to those 20 months. My father dying last year was overwhelming, but I knew I'd get through it. Char's accident was crushing and if the outcome had been different, I'm not sure I would have survived it.

She's not sure, either.

We can all make jokes about how gray I am, but she sees something different. She sees someone who was once in such shape that he had to get all his clothing tailored because his quads were so big that any pants he bought were too big around the waist in order to make the legs fit. She sees someone who ran 50 miles a week and more, who lived on Ding Dongs and Trix yet still managed to maintain sub 10% body fat. She sees someone who hit a wall and can now buy his clothes off the rack, who jogs instead of running and rarely more than 5 miles at a time now, and who couldn't get into the sub 10% body fat range now if his life depended on it.

She took charge of my diet before Kevin was even born because she was terrified, but still--she can see that age is kicking me in the balls and she's praying it's not an indicator of my lifespan. The reality is that she's nine years younger than I am and will outlive me anyway; it pisses her off that a 20 month span that began before our first anniversary may whittle away at some of the years we were counting on having together.

We had those visions everyone does; the kids grow up and move on, we retire and travel. And while no one gets any guarantees, what if she's not going to get those post-kid years?

The obvious answer is that we grab onto them now; I'm not working, and Brad would be happy to stay with the kids if we wanted to take off for a few days here and there. She has me at her beck and call right now, and I don't mind that one bit. But, as she has recovered from her accident and actually needs me less and less, I'm starting to feel like I should go back to work.

I mentioned last night going back to school and getting a teaching credential; she won't stop me, but she's not as happy about it as I presumed she would be.

You don't have to work, and I don't want that stress on us.

I'm not overjoyed with the idea of stress, but I'm also not overjoyed with the idea of not working.

She wants to know which would age me more, which would make me feel even older: working and dealing with other people's crap again, or staying home and spending a lot more time with her.

I almost didn't answer that.

I don't think I need to worry about anything turning my hair more gray than it is; that's not possible, not more than minutely. It's already 98% gray.

I probably need to worry about it falling out instead. because if I don't do what she wants me to, she might rip it out by its roots.

Ian rolled out of bed a little later than usual this morning and shuffled into the kitchen where the kids were cleaning up after breakfast. As he reached for the coffee pot he squinted against the bright lights and grumbled, "Why the hell aren't you kids in school? Everyone else I know with kids starts back today."

This prompted the kids to scatter to find the loudest activities possible with which to annoy him. Kevin had to practice his drums. Rachel the piano. Alex started playing a video game at a louder than normal volume. This was intentional and designed to get a response from their father, but he didn't bite. He just sat down at the table and began planning out their day, which was going to begin at the dojang--as soon as he was awake enough to get up and get dressed. (He's moving in slow motion, though, and I think it will be after lunch before we get out the front door.)

All three of the kids test this weekend and they've all asked him to help them step up their training a notch; I think they realize that this could be the last rank test they take with him as the test proctor (or possibly ever; they all have other interests now) and they all want to do well. It's like this is one last chance to spend that kind of time with him; while they each want to dabble in other things--dance, music, sports, school clubs--I think they also understand that it won't be the same as hanging around the dojang every afternoon. For all their lives TKD has been a constant, and they've grown up with it but also having one or both parents right there, and the things they want to do now are things we can drive them to, but not participate in.

Ian is right, too; the longer I'm away from teaching and training, the less I care about getting back to it. I'd like to see the kids stay with it even on a part time basis, but there's nothing more I need from it. If I go back it will be to get back into shape and maintain my skills, but I don't feel the need to spend so much time with other people's kids and think that spending that time with my own, my attention undivided, would be the better thing. I'm not missing the business side of the dojang, either, dealing with stubborn parents and disconnected students, and all the minutiae of keeping it afloat. I was seriously upset when I was told I would be out of training for a year, but now it doesn't seem as important.

So the test this week could be the last one any of us participates in. Ian and I will both make ourselves available to sit on testing panels, but that might be it. So today I am going to go over to the dojang and watch my husband torture our kids and help where I can, and remind myself that while I love TKD and have loved teaching over the years, I'm ready for us to move on to whatever is next.

I think whatever is next starts with convincing Ian that he's not a paternal failure if he doesn't have a "real job." That has to be a guy thing.

TK, as Char expected, returned from Christmas with his kids with them (and his ex) in tow. They returned on the 30th; we first heard from him yesterday, to ask me if I minded taking the dojang classes for a few more days while he finds them a place to live.

I mind, but I'm not telling him no. My involvement this week will mainly consist of having two or three of the black belt students teach while I work with the students who are testing at the end of this week. As long as TK is back in the dojang to sit on the testing panel, it's not that big a of a deal.

If he's not back, then it becomes a big deal. My kids are testing; I do not sit on black belt panels where my family could benefit (or be hurt) by my decisions. There will be two others on the panel with TK, Dack and the master instructor from an associate dojang. I'll conduct the testing (or torture the students, depending on their point of view) but I will not make any decisions. In TK's absence, there would be no one to break a tie.

He'll be there, though.

Test days are typically a non-event, because most of the students testing are going for gold, green, blue, or red belt, and there are few of them. No panel is required. Whoever is testing them runs them through their paces and decides (though we usually know beforehand who will pass and who will struggle; it's pointless to schedule someone to test when you know they aren't ready.)

This test day will be more of an event; aside from the color-belted students testing, we have 4 going for their 1st degree black belt, one for 2nd, and one for 3rd. Of those six, half of them are my kids. I'm still not on board with the idea of allowing a ten year old to test for black belt, but under TK's new rules, Kevin is eligible and he has the physical skills to pass.

That half of them are my kids doesn't mean I won't torture them. We know they have the abilities; the test is to push them hard and see if they suck it up and push back. I don't expect perfection, but the students who gut it out and give it their best even when they don't feel like they can move one more inch are the ones most likely to pass. I know Kevin and Rachel have the abilities they need; I think they'll do just fine with the demands of the test, but I've been surprised during black belt testing before. I have no doubts about Alex getting through to second degree.

Char is concerned that they'll be distracted by the presence of TK's kids; they'll probably be there (he's got them living with him right now, I can't blame him if he drags them everywhere for a while) and our kids miss his. I hate to say it, but they'll pass or not on their own merits and it's not TK's fault if they are distracted.

After the testing is over, I think my involvement with the dojang will become minimal. The kids have too many other things going on now and all want to pull back. Char won't be able to even think about training and teaching again for several months, and the longer she's away from it the less compelled she feels to do it. And at some point I really should get a job, just so my kids don't start to think that unemployment is a life goal.

Or I'll send Char off to work. I could be a stay at home dad.

The kids are, understandably, curious about the family members they've either never met or simply don't remember. They know I am irretrievably irritated with my brother and will probably never have a healthy relationship with him, and they understand why I've all but written off my sister.

Erin is a frequent reminder of my sister's overwhelming parental failures and her innate selfishness. Still, Erin does not mind talking about her mother, and she can answer questions the kids have that I either can't or won't. She's shown pictures of her mother to them, and they can all see the resemblance my sister had to our father, and they can see her in Erin.

Char was digging through photos today, and Kevin expressed a curiosity about my brother. Who did he look like? What color is his hair? Is he tall like Dad or short like Grandpa was? Char flipped through old photo albums looking for pictures to show him, and couldn't find any.

I had pictures; in our early 20s he and I took a trip to Ireland and I had pictures from that. I remember scanning a few when Alex was a baby. Yet somewhere along the way, either accidentally or intentionally, I've lost them.

I'm so far from being his biggest fan the idea is a joke, but it still bothers me that I don't have a single picture of my only brother.

I could ask him for one, but that would require giving him my address, and frankly, that's never going to happen.

Fifteen years ago last night, I asked Char the single most important question of my life. And thank God she said yes. We started making wedding plans right off the bat, but a dead rabbit sped the process up, and in just a month and a day we'll celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. We have plans for that, plans that don't include moping teenagers or an excited almost eleven year old, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Tonight, or last night actually, we celebrated having made the commitment on a New Year's Eve that was infinitely better than ones we'd spent in the past. To the rest of you it was ushering in of a new year, but to us it was an anniversary of getting it right, of me having the sense to ask and her doing me the honor of saying yes.

Brad watched Rachel and Kevin for us, and we went out to dinner, and then hit one of the better clubs to dance. It was a far different atmosphere than the company party we'd been at 15 years ago, quite a bit louder and more frenetic, but in a way that was better. In the middle of all those people drinking and dancing like tonight was the last night they'd ever have, we had a bubble of calm around us. We didn't go out with friends; we intentionally went out alone.

We could have stayed out all night, but shortly after midnight we both wanted to be home with our kids. Alex came home about the same time we did, and the other kids were still up, so Char made everyone hot chocolate and we spent an hour or so listening to them chatter about how they spent the night.

How you start a year can be a pretty good indicator of how you want to end the year; spending those first couple of hours with my family is definitely how I want to end this year.

The house is quite now; the kids have been asleep for hours and Char drifted off an hour or so ago. Even the dogs and cats are snoring.

I could sleep, I'm finally sleeping like a normal person, but for a while I just want to soak this up.

Happy New Year, friends and lurkers.