I'll have what she's having

We visited friends in Cleveland this weekend. We left our house and it was in the 50s and clear. On the way down we drove into rain which turned into slush which ended in heavy snow. All this was accompanied by huge gusts of wind which shook the car and "helped" us change lanes...involuntarily. We were delighted to get back to Michigan and have it warm(er) and dry if not actually sunny.

Our friends have three kids ages 3, 4 and 5. They love me. They are so sweet and were so excited to see us. We took them to see the movie Robots and then they talked about it the WHOLE REST OF THE DAY!!!! The 3 year old had to go potty about 3 minutes before the end of the movie. His mom took him and I stayed with the other kids. By the time they returned the credits were rolling and so were the tears. He had a minor...scratch that, MAJOR meltdown at the fact that he missed the ending. He screamed bloody murder the entire ride home. The 4 year old was crying because we didn't scrape the ice off of her window (side window in the back of the mini-van, not necessary for driving purposes) and the 5 year old complained that his feet got wet from all the SPLASHING he had done in the huge slushy puddles in the parking lot (he failed to mention that his splashing had completely soaked both of my pant legs half way to the knees, but HIS foot was wet, major tragedy). Fun Times! My friend looked at me about ready to cry herself and said "This should be good birth control for ya." I smiled and said "Apparently I don't need any!" That got her laughing and I think she felt a bit better.

They asked us how things were going. We told them that we were getting closer and closer to medical procedures as opposed to the old fashioned way. They asked if we would do those procedures or just adopt. (Her words, not mine) I said that I didn't really want to do the procedures but that we would probably give them a try. They both asked us multiple times if we really wanted kids as their three little ones ran around the house at top speed and threw rice, carrots and crumbles of cake all over the floor.

Funny. They didn't ask us this when the kids would run up clear out of the blue, hug their legs and say "I love you!" or bring them a picture they had just drawn. They didn't ask us this when they were reading good night stories sitting on the couch, each of them with a child on their lap and another one between them. Those were the times they didn't question why we wanted to be parents. Those were the times they enjoyed what they had and were thankful for their amazing family.

NOTE: This post may appear twice, I emailed it yesterday and it has yet to show up so I am posting it directly. If I see a duplicate entry I'll remove one. Sorry about the trouble, thanks be to Blogger.