Rose Colored Glasses and Chaos

I used to blog.  I posted regularly.  I wrote about important things, and the inconsequential.  Mostly about my little family, my growing children, my every day ups and downs.  I wrote about all that – and I wrote about football and fabric and how it all seems to go together in my crazy life.  And then, well, life got in the way.  (And I had a creepy internet stalker, but that is a whole other can of worms.)  I had kept a journal even as a small child, then through my teens and twenties, and finally by the time Cole came along, I started blogging.  You can look at the “Archives” of my adventures in family life at My Old Blog.

When I started this website – I maybe harbored a secret hope that I would blog again.  It seemed fitting to start a new chapter, becoming a family.  I felt the subtitle “adventures in family life” appropriate.  It was sure to be an adventure for us all…Will loves me, and he loves the children.  I have never doubted that love for one quarter of a nanosecond; however, I can now honestly admit that I had my concerns about him moving in with us.  I WORRIED: how could he possibly make the transition from calm and quiet bachelor living to a crazy house bursting with small children and dog hair?  I can admit that it worried me now.  I can admit it because, as usual, he has vastly exceeded my expectations. 

I worried because, you see, as a single mom/lawyer/homeowner/community volunteer/(insert–other-time-eating-title-here), I coveted his “alone” time and his personal space and just the general QUIET of his life.  His alarm would go off.  He got up (in the quiet of his apartment, alone), showered with no interruptions about who hit whom first or complaints about super-glue in the dog’s hair.  He went to work, came home, ate whatever he felt like eating at whatever time he was hungry, and watched whatever suited him on TV.  I could not, for the LIFE of me, see how he would want to give all that up to get all tangled up in our chaotic where-are-your-shoes, here-eat-a-cookie-for-breakfast, PUT-ON-YOUR-SHOES-RIGHT-NOW, rush-to-the-busstop, oh-crap-the-dog-ate-my-underwear life.  I wanted to get up when I had to get up to get myself ready, not an hour and a half earlier to FIND EVERYONE’S SHOES and get them all to the busstop.  I wanted to sleep until after 8am on the weekends.  I wanted to have friends over til 11:30 on a weeknight.  I wanted to see an R-rated movie without finding a babysitter.  I wanted to eat chinese takeout whenever I felt like it.  (I admit this one is not too much of a stretch, since the children know China City’s takeout menu by heart themselves…)  This is how I saw Will’s life.  FREE and UNENCUMBERED, and LUXURIOUS.

What I did not realize: perhaps Will was looking at MY (entirely crazy) life through his own rose-colored glasses.  He always wanted a wife (check).  Children (check, check).  Pets (check).  Love, company, homecooked meals, laughter (checkity check check check)…something to come home to other than quiet…maybe  even (gasp) a little chaos now and then.  In one fell swoop, he got all these things (and a lot more than a little chaos now and then).  And, in return, we got him.  We are all lucky.  Very, very, very lucky…

I suppose we will all hold on tight as the adventures begin.