What I've always wanted

Saturday morning, Oliver and I walked down to the Metrolink station. Sometimes he ran ahead of me. Sometimes he held my hand. Sometimes I had to carry him. When we got to the station, we took the elevator down to the tracks. While we sat on the bench and waited, Oliver had a snack of graham crackers. A few minutes later the train came in and we waved to it. A few minutes after that train left, another train came in and we waved to it. One more train and it was time to go home. The weather was cold and Oliver's mitten-less hands were cold. I told him to put his hands on me inside my jacket against my body. I carried him home like that - his hands warming against my body.

Last night, I stopped in his room before I went to sleep. He had fallen out of his new bed on to the pillows next to it. I picked him up and put him in bed, pulling the covers around him. He stirred briefly but went back to sleep after a minute or so of my hand resting on his back. I watched him for a minute as his breathing fell back into the rhythms of deep sleep. Back in our bedroom, I picked my wife's book and glasses off of the bed where she had taken them off before falling asleep. I spent a moment watching her as she slept, remembering earlier that evening when I tried to feel the new baby kicking her stomach. I turned off the light and gently kissed her forehead.

I'm in the place that I've always wanted to be for as long as I can remember thinking about the future. There are things about it that I'd change, but I wouldn't trade it away for anything.