Just add love and stir...

And Just Like That

The first time it happened I was pushing The Littlest Buddy thru the grocery store, we had tooled by the bakery for that amazing subduer the “free cookie” and it happened. “Your son is so cute” the old baker lady says to me all hair net and smiles. I kind of just stared blankly back at her, blinked a few times, and without even thinking just blurted out, “He’s not my son” awkward silence, and then she just said “oh… well… he’s very cute” and moved on. I felt like an idiot and then it all swept over me. A big wash of scenarios: the first was an older resentful LB screaming for me to Eff Off “You’re not my REAL Dad! I don’t have to listen to you.” Then I remembered Gene Hackman in the film Royal Tenenbaums, as he would callously and purposefully make it a point to introduce Gwyneth Paltrow’s character as his “adopted daughter” and all the mental bruising that had done. It felt like to correct strangers when they referred to The Littlest Buddy as my son was rude to LB . I mean what do you say? “No, nope he’s not my REAL son!” But at the same time I felt like I should say something. It is truly an awkward moment. Like blurting out a punch-line while someone else is telling a joke… “STEP-SON!” I basically woke up one day, and then people started smiling and cooing at us in public and calling me Daddy and I was shell-shocked.

Rewind…

When friends asked how I felt about Nicole having a child when we first started to date, it was an easy answer, simply because it was something that I had thought about for a long time before I had even said hello to her. When she first caught my eye, and I started the “asking around” process, it was revealed that she had a little boy. In fact, it was whispered thru clenched teeth, with nervous eyes like they were telling me some creepy dark detail in some back alley, like she smoked crack, or had castrated a man, or had a physical defect like a goiter hanging from her neck. You know the voice I’m talking about: It was delivered as “Dude she has a kid”, then looking up at me like I should run for the hills. For me the fact that she had a little boy wasn’t an issue, what became the question to have answered was if this little boy was happy, and how responsible of a mother she was. How awkward to get involved with someone and then realize they’re a shitty parent. All the sudden you find yourself romantically involved with some arm jerking neglectful impatient young mom that is more interested in drinking with her friends and banging dudes then being a parent.

In a nutshell, it didn’t take long to realize Nicole was a thoughtful, loving, and attentive Mom. It is rare to see a happier child. He is just bombarded with love.

I was very comfortable being in their lives. The attachments formed fast. Everything happened fast for Nicole and I. We were married 5 months after we had met; we left close friends and family scratching their heads. Most of them convinced I had knocked her up. A true testament of how jaded we have become as a generation to suspect true love LAST, and instantly assume a bailout marriage from an unwanted pregnancy. A-holes!

So here I am. Instant family. 6 months into our marriage and trying to have our first baby together during the worst economic crisis of our lifetime. We struggle and scrape by, we are tight on money, doing without the little luxuries we were accustomed to before, making a new home together, and we are happy. And if you can remain happy thru these kinds of times, then I feel super awesome about our future. So where I have landed almost a year now after first meeting Nicole and LB, is that I can’t live without them. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for either of them. I sacrifice sleep, friendships, work, and dreams to make sure that we are healthy and happy. So I feel okay if some strange person in public refers to The Littlest Buddy as my son. My friends and the people that matter know who we are. I don’t think I had paid my dues enough initially to be comfortable with that assumption.

I was joking possible worries to a friend recently and said, what if I love LB so much, and think he is so amazing, that I can’t stand my own kids, and constantly tell them: “Why can’t you be more like LB” It was a joke, but at the same time it made me wonder about parents with 3 or 4 kids and if they feel love on levels. Like, is it possible to actually feel less for one child to the next? It reminds me of “Cool Hand Luke” and that scene with his Mama before she dies when she tells him she always loved him more than his brother. And I know there will be a point when our children will ask us who we love more, they always do right?

So far my prepared statement for when that time comes will be: “ It’s a contest! The first one to buy your Mom and I a new house to retire in, we will love the most!”

And now I leave you with a very rare and seldom captured big natural smile by The Littlest Buddy…



This is how he usually smiles if you forget, and make the mistake and actually say, “smile”

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