kids et al.

no one can ever tell you how much you'll love your children

mine are away right now, with carmel, visiting family and their absence makes me sick. my house feels too big, with too many rooms and not enough of a mess in the kitchen. every morning i wake up in fits and starts, scared because i don't hear the enthusiasm of my son's heavy footfalls accelerating into the master bedroom. every night i dream of the spastic glee of my daughter when i pull her out of her crib, her beaver's front teeth smiling at me like goalposts.

the house feels too cold with them gone, and when i laugh while looking at their pictures i imagine carmel laughing with me and it makes me quickly want to jump on a plane and surprise them.

[i forsee a terrible amount of money being spent spoiling my family when they return]

loving my kids this much makes me realize how loved i was [and am] by my parents. it forces me to relive every moment where i thought they were embarrased of me, or would have been better off without a third son. i realize now that nothing - nothing! - could ever separate my love from my children.

in this way i feel like god

though, it stuns me to think that what i'm feeling is only a splinter's worth of his great affection for us.

at any rate - i miss you 3

love you!