Visitors

Our visitors from Colorado left this morning. It was a very enjoyable stay and having two children the ages of 3 and 1 are certainly a handful. My children are 7 and 4 years old and I can't remember back to those early days. I do remember my daughter's first night home from the hospital. She was up every hour on the hour for the first 8 hours. I thought my wife and I were certainly in for it but she finally slept for 2 and 1/2 hours after being up ALL night. Of course there was the 2:00 am feeding for both of my children but that didn't last very long. My wife and I were very fortunate with our children because our sleep deprivation in those early years was minimized.

My nephew (my younger sister's son) might be the happiest person on the face of the earth. However; last night he was far from happy at 12:30 am and again at 3:45 am. I think this is how he gets out of all his angst by letting out blood curdling cries and by the morning he is so very happy. He is 3 years old and has no cares in the world much like every other 3 year old; but he is a very special child. I have not met a child that speaks as much as he does; he is quite the character. He talks to anyone and everyone. I think my children were a little "afraid" of him because he has no fear and likes to get in your face. Not the BAD in your face, the loving in your face and my children don't do well with touchy feely from someone other than Mom or Dad. So they had some getting used to but they all had a great time.

My daughter has a flair for the dramatics. When our guests (it doesn't matter who the guests are) leave she always cries and says she misses them. She is so very cute and she really means it. She has two baby girl cousins and they have both visited in the past two weeks. When each one left she proclaimed I miss the baby. Sometimes her crying gets out of hand when she leaves her Grandmothers (both of them) and it is hard to console her. We try the preemptive method when the persons visiting are still here and explaining when we will see them again and how good it will be when we see them and for the most part it has sort of worked. She still cries because she has a pure soul and loves her family tremendously. The innocence in children is so pure and adorable it is ashame we lose it as adults. I guess life has a way of taking away innocence as we grow older but witnessing this from a child is priceless.

My innocence faded away sometime ago. Who knows when it actually went away but it did and I tried to hide away from the world. I hid for a number of years but I could only hide so long. I hid for a number of reasons and all of them make no sense. Thank God I was not hiding the day my daughter was born because I do remember her birth and having the doctor give her to my wife. In that instant my daughter was not crying she just opened her big blue eyes and looked around the hospital room. Our eyes meet for a brief second (which seemed like an eternity because it is forever etched in my mind) and my heart melted instantly and I found out the meaning of unconditional love. I can go off in another direction on the how could I or what was I thinking when I was gambling but I won't. I did those terrible things and will have to live with the consequences but I have the love of my wife and two children to carry me through each and every day no matter what happens.