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Table for 9 please

A Fathers perspective of a huge family, finally…..

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November 2014

Thanksgiving….Anniversary….2 months old….and life rolls on

Wow, we blinked and there went 2 months and a bunch of big family events. I feel like I haven’t written in quite sometime and I must admit I missed it, when I had time to think about it! What an absolute blur life has become as of late, even with the social calendar all but canceled. The office remodel is nearly complete, the dreamboats turned 2 months, we celebrated a decade together, oh and there was Thanksgiving to top it all off, whew.

10 years…one full decade is quite an accomplishment and it is hard to fathom that we envisioned all that would occur in that time.  Lets see, we graduated dental school, completed a residency and fellowship, had a son, bought a practice, had a son, had another son, bought another practice, merged the two, remodeled the office, and had two more sons (at once!).  For most people, that would be a full LIFETIME and we are just getting started!  I must reveal that with all the moving parts that engulf our life, there is no one I would rather take this roller coaster with then my super woman.  Thank you beautiful for an amazing 10 years and a fun-filled beginning of decades together, this will be very interesting in the coming years.

2 months….The dreamboats are now 8 weeks old, which is unbelievable.  It seems as if they have always been with us.  It is a weird metaphysical feeling that this family always had them with us even when they were but a thought.  I love them more than anything, and knowing that this is it has made me relish every little thing.  They get rocked a little longer, talked too a little more often, and definitely kissed on more than any babies on earth.  They truly are amazing and going out with twins has been a blessing for sure.  I think we really thought life would be impossible before they were born, but it all just falls into place.  I tell people all the time that life with 7 kids is not as hard as one would imagine, the more kids you have the easier it gets.  Yes, that sounds as if I have skipped a few doses of my medication and need to be committed, but I stand by that statement.  The machine runs smoother as each family member learns their role in the family and starts accepting those responsibilities.  They come to realize, if they don’t do it no one is coming behind them to pick up the pieces.  It all just works!

Tonight we went to a celebration of a dear friends birthday.  She is turning over another decade and she came to me to ask why I had not written for a while.  She was half-joking because she knows what our life looks like right now, but I smiled inside.  I started this blog to give a fresh perspective of life through a dads eyes, but also as a “therapy” session for myself.  Tonight I realized that people actually read it and appreciate the words, and that means a lot to me.  So to the birthday girl, cheers and thanks for your friendship and the small words that you had no idea meant so much.  I hope you had a blast at you party!  There will not be a long hiatus to the next chapter in this saga.

 

 

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Re-examining life

It is funny how life changing, gargantuan events cause us to put our lives under examination.  This view within ourselves can be the beginning of a, sort of rebirth, or at least a back to basics restart.  I think for quite sometime I have been in this modus operandi of go, go, go, without regard to what is happening all around.  See, when you over commit, you miss the things that are truly important, like your family and those memories are fleeting, so when they are gone, they do not float back around.  What could be more important then those moments around the dinner table when each kid gets the stage to let us know what happened in their world today, or the project that the nanny had to complete, or the field trip you missed due to some golf match, or, I should probably stop there before the list gets depressing.  The point is, when you miss something, it is a moment in your families timeline of life that is lost forever.  You will never see the look on his or hers face when they get the final spelling word correct or the time they scored the winning basket at the buzzer, they are all lost in the black hole of overcommitment and “I am just too busy.”  What could possibly more important then those amazing events of life?  Why did you have kids if you couldn’t place enough importance on sacrificing some personal event to be present?  In the grand scheme of things, we will never be measured, as men, by the size of our wallets, or the number of houses we own, or the 67 we shot on the course, no, we will be remembered by our legacy.  We will be remembered by what we accomplished as fathers and the life shaping lessons we taught our kids.

When these twins came cruising into our world, we were the over committed, the too busy, the weekly dinner party goers.  Our social calendar was inconceivably chocked full of “must dos”.  This was all too fun and exciting, that is till you slow down and realize what it is you are sacrificing.  How cool are the nights you spend on the couch, as a family unit, watching some silly Disney movie with popcorn?  The kids falling asleep on your lap and carrying each of them to bed and tucking them in for a long nights rest. What if you got to feel that bliss once a week?  How amazing would life as a father feel?  Over the past 3 months we have had these opportunities and relished in the ability to say no to outside events and spend some quality family moments together.  I will not soon forget the feeling of my 16 year old telling me how much it meant for me to take the time to be at an event, it will make you tear up, I promise.  If we can sacrifice, with a large practice to run and 7 kids (5 under the age of 8), what could anyones excuse possibly be, other than selfishness?  Please do not misconstrue this to mean we should not take moments for ourselves, just not all the free time.

I am realizing pretty quickly, that having these twins in this ginormous family, will shrink our social event calendar, and I am really feeling excellent about that proposition.  It will allow me more time to spend enjoying the one thing that truly completes me, my family.  There will still be fund raising events and date nights our, but those opportunities will be fewer, and actually more treasured.  The sad truth, is that in todays society it takes a life altering event to cause this rebirth of life.  We are in such a rat race to succeed that we forget what success even looks like.   Success is not contained in a car emblem or a vacation to some exotic hut with a personal chef.  It is measured by the love we feel surrounding our lives and that bright shimmering star in our children’s eyes when we come home after a long day.  Take a look at you kids face when you show up, unannounced, at their first grade play and tell me that wasn’t a great day.  If we center our lives around those successes, all the other extraneous stuff, we call success, will fall into place.

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Could it be? One month in….Life is really amazing

So today marks the one month birthday of my little buddies, and I must inform you of their new nickname, dreamboats.  I see all the time, someone posting on Facebook how this baby or that had stolen their heart, and it really stated to make me nauseous.  That is until these little dudes came along and sweetened this family ten fold.  Here are a few of the reasons why:  they have slept an average of 5.5 hours continuous per night, we have caught them on numerous occasions holding hands while eating, when one is fussy coming close to his brother usually calms the other down, you can surely get the picture.  When my superwoman told me she wanted “one” more kid, I must say I was not overly enthusiastic when I said sure.  Come on, who says no to that kind of request, and this has been one spectacular way to round out this table for 9!

The other cool part of these boys is the reaction of all of their siblings.  In all my years of working with kids and being a father I have yet to witness the outpouring of love that these band of brothers have displayed.  From the 8-year-old that gets up with the roosters, hence his affectionate nickname, just to hold a baby before dad heads off to the office, or the much maligned 16-year-old who every night comes into the bedroom to say goodnight and hold a baby.  All of the other boys have to kiss the babies before going to bed or we have a meltdown that makes Chernobyl seem small.  It is quite a sight to watch the affection and attention that August and Liev receive daily.  It sure makes you proud down deep, to know that someday all these boys will make amazing fathers because of these experiences.  They will look back and see what it is to be there for moments in a families existence and know how important it is to put your family first.  One lesson I have learned in working with and having a few kids, is that they are always watching and listening.  Little things we do for each other make big impacts and small kind words make a world of difference in a child’s life, especially from their dad.

Today I traveled up that 10,000 foot climb to take a look below and what I found was pure bliss.  I see a family growing into these new additions and making the adjustment quite effortless.  The view revealed a group of rowdy boy siblings sharing an abundance of love and support for the upheaval that entered this family one month ago.  Today, one month in, I am encouraged and exuberant about this future we created, and have a feeling there are a lot of marvelous times ahead.  The dreamboat keeps gaining speed and the world seemed a little bit smaller today then yesterday, carpe diem, because today was pretty unbelievable.

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