One night a few months ago, the family was sitting around the table enjoying a nice weekend meal at home. Because my husband has a long commute and frequently doesn't get home until late on weeknights, the weekends are the one time we can all eat together.
We were laughing and enjoying each other's company when my five year-old just got up from the table and nonchalantly walked to where I was sitting. He then proceeded to spit out the contents of his mouth into my hand. For some unknown maternal reason my hand instinctively opened up. My husband looked up at me and without missing a beat said, "And we thought we would never go anywhere exotic."
We have been exploring the jungle's of parenthood for 12 years now. Everyday I am amazed and in awe of how each day can bring something so completely different from the next.
We have experienced such great joy. Watching our first son in utero dance around on the sonogram with the sound of his strong heartbeat in the background. Made all the more joyful since we had experienced previous pregnancies when the sonograms showed no heartbeat.
Seeing our daughter emerge with a huge shock of black hair and a scream that could shatter glass, knowing that at last our son was a brother.We were a family.
And laughing with complete delight when we found out we were having another boy after thinking our baby days were over. Having the wonderful feeling that someone was listening to our secret wish of having three, beautiful children.
Then there are the times when we questioned our ability to care for these precious people.
I will never forget the time my six foot husband took our first baby, then only six months, out of his crib. The "fly to mommy game" may have gone better if there hadn't been a ceiling fan in the nursery. I can still hear the sound of my precious baby's head as it hit the ceiling fan.
"Kathy, look at the baby," my husband said, in panicked voice.
"I am not looking if he has no head," was my hysterical response.
When my husband spoke with the pediatrician a short time afterward she said she knew it was a new father when she got the message: Baby hit head on ceiling fan.
Many a sleepless night has been spent tending to sick children or worrying over milestones not reached. There is nothing quite like being covered in toddler vomit to strengthen a marriage.
We have had weeks of panic as we have had to endure the wait of possibly devastating test results for our daughter. And we have had the frustration of sitting in a specialist's office only to be told they have never seen anything like our daughter and her still undiagnosed neurological disorder.
We have become partners in the truest sense of the word. We are the only two people in the world who know how the other one feels when it comes to our children. Laughter and tears have their own meaning in our world.
Little did I know, 19 years ago this Valentines Day, that when I said "yes" to marriage I was starting on a journey to a place more exotic than any jungle we could find on a map.
