Life at the Top

Three years ago at Christmas I was living in a tiny apartment in Uptown, developing a history of being absurdly incorrect when it came to finding love and completely unaware of how to get to the next level of my life.

Today I live in an awesomely spacious house, am married to phenomenal and loving woman and am gonna be a dad in 2012. Man...

Life moves at such breakneck speed that it can be really hard to take a step back in appreciation. Apprecation for the wayward journey that brought me to this fsupposed fairy tale land of sunshine and rainbows. I don't feel I'm necessarily deserving of complete happiness but I've found it all the same. It's also hard to find too much truth in the theory that good things happen to good people, since there are countless great people who have had terrible luck in life. All I really know is that I went to my parents house in Wausau three years ago as a kid who didn't have a clue. And I'll be going there tomorrow as a man who has figured a few things out.

Hurtling toward the unknown world of fatherhood is coming with greater anticipation as each day passes. When you've had a year like I've had, it's hard not to feel stirringly confident that greater things are to come. Ain't no stopping me now...

The Summer of Serenity, The Fall of Fertility

If you're lucky, making a baby is something you decide on when you're good and ready. The old saying goes, "When are you ever really ready?" Well I think most people have had a scare or two in their day, and if that fire alarm had been the real thing they know damn well they would NOT have been ready. Kelly and I have known for some time that we wanted babies, and sooner was the big winner over later. After we got married we opted for one last summer as newlywed, freewheeling kids before this shit got serious. Thus began the Summer of Serenity. We drank, we ate, we took trips, we took naps, we pretty much enjoyed the crap out of everything the summer of 2011 had to offer.

And then we pulled the goalie. I became well versed in how long an ovulation period lasted. Pre natal vitamins were in play. I had some talks with my boys and told them to go into battle with courage and dedication. That they would be on their own with nothing to guide them but their cunning. And when they saw the giant egg appear before them, to not retreat in horrible fright. But to embrace the awesome beauty and welcoming power of the great egg. For a small lonely sperm, that's the attitude you need to have.

I don't know which one of my guys made it through to the end..but I imagine it being like Atreyu at the end of the Neverending Story. No one gave him a chance. He witnessed death and destruction at every turn. He doubted himself long before he finally believed in himself. And in the end, nothing was holding him back. Many great stories involve a phenomenal journey against incredible odds to reach an amazing destination. Our story is no different.

Well done good sir. You will not soon be forgotten.

Bring on the Winter of Waiting.

Getting the Right Hand

Babies. They can slide into the world at any time, arriving into a situation in which they have no control over. Ideally they're looking to enter the world the child of two loving, committed parents. But they have no say in the matter. They can't pick and choose who they get to call mom and dad. They don't sift through preview after preview of prospective parents and eventually make that well informed, "Them, those are the two I want" choice. Some are born to a mother with no father in the picture. Some are born into an unhappy, unloving family. Some are born into poverty with so little hope and so few chances to live the life that every kid deserves. The lucky ones are born to parents who put them first, who love them unconditionally and without a ceiling. I was born to parents like that and fortunately that was the only kind of upbringing I knew. I wouldn't trade the childhood I had for anything in the world. I would guess that many parents have ideas about how they want to parent. I'd also guess that most of those plans go out the window as soon as doctor hands them the little bundle. You can read, study, imagine, talk to friends, prepare in every possible way and still be woefully unprepared for the moment you gaze at your child for the very first time. I can't imagine there's any other moment that even comes close to that one. Thinking about it makes my face numb.

It's like I'm 11 years old again, back at Noah's Ark in Wisconsin Dells. I was there all day and the ride The Plunge was just looming over me, waiting and beckoning. Finally about a half hour before the park closed, I got up the nerve to give it a shot. As I stood on the top of that slide and looked at the steep drop below me, I had no idea what was about to happen. I only knew that it would be terrifying and awesome in one furious plummet. Seconds later, I was gone, headed down, ready or not. And was I ever right.

Terrifying and awesome. Here we are again...