The important things

Just spent a great weekend with my kids. Friday evening in particular created one of those moments you just can't manufacture. The kids were fed, bathed and ready for bed. We lay on my bed a began talking for what was to become oven an hour. The kids asked about the day they were born and with each of them we relived to moments leading up to and including those life changing days.

Ben was born in 2001. He clearly didn't want to come out on his own terms and was eventually yanked out via C-section. Moments after his birth the doctors told us they weren't happy with how he appeared and placed him in the ICU for 3 days of observation. I remember the first time we really met. He was laying there, looking like every other newborn i'd ever seen for the most part. What made Ben unique to me were his eyes, he looked like an "old soul", calm and much more aware than someone one day old should have been. Like his mind was hard and work and he knew things that no one else did. And 7 years later he's still that way.

Emily was born in 2004. the circumstances around her birth almost exactly mimicked Ben's. Once again our first introduction was in an ICU room. However Emily's first hours were a lot different to her brother's. The nurses had warned us that Emily wasn't too happy about the I.V. and the various monitoring wires she'd been subjected to. When I saw her for the first time she was laying on her back with her tiny arms tethered to the bed to prevent any further misbehavior. She was squirming and almost growling with a wild look in her eyes that said, "You can't hold me down, I'll do whatever i want!". Needless to say almost 5 years later Emily is still the free spirit, who walks to the beat of her own drum, she was the first time we met.

I may ways my life at the moment is a far cry from where i'd expected it to be 35 years in. I'd even go so far as to say it may have reached it's lowest point. But all that aside, for an hour on Friday evening, two little pajama clad people reminded me what's really important. Them.

Good stuff.