My Family

Nico came in from the garage. It was his in-office day, the day of the week I secretly love. During the rest of the week he works from his home office in t-shirts and ugly shorts, but on his in-office day, he’s magically transformed into this strong, incredibly sexy man when he puts on a crisply pressed white shirt, a smartly knotted tie, dark dress trousers, and expensive leather shoes. Nothing hotter than a man in dress clothes. Nothing.

My younger son and I were there by the door when Nico came in. He hugged and kissed me, and then he looked down at my son, scrunched up his face, hunched over, and became the tickle monster. My son squealed in delight and ran to his room to “hide” from the tickle monster. Giggling from under his blanket, he said, “Nico tickle [his own name]” over and over again.

My son’s developmental delays are very pronounced, so a sentence like this is rather amazing.

Nico stopped tickling for just a moment and my older son came into the room. The two boys created a cacophony of ‘Nicos’, each saying his name over and over again as they vied to get his attention.

For the first time, I looked at the four of us together and knew we were a family.

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Last night Nico and I were in bed and he laughed. “I just found a rock in the bed!” he exclaimed. “I know who it was; it was one of my chir-ren,” he said playfully, and then, again, “my chir-ren.”

He was being playful, as he always seems to be when he expresses the most serious of things, but his message was clear: these are my children. They aren’t just some kids his girlfriend dragged along from a previous relationship; they are his. And I know he’ll always love them as his own and be better to them than their biological father is.

We’re a family. A family.

Moving In

Nico and I finally did it: we finally moved in together. The air conditioner works, the washing machine works, the bugs have been killed . . . finally everything has fallen into place.

My biggest concern wasn’t the physical details of the house, though. My biggest concern was with how the occupants of the house would mesh together.

The single mom thing colors and changes everything about dating. It’s not just me that Nico was moving in with; it was my kids, too. When Nico started talking about marriage back in the spring I told him, “You can’t just love me. You have to love all three of us.” We’re a package deal, my boys and me. Nico and I meshed just fine, but how would the four of us be together?

From the moment my little dudes and I stepped into the house, my older boy was glued, absolutely glued, to Nico. Oh my god. It was like Nico was the coolest person in the universe. He wants Nico to play Bakugan with him and watch him do cool tricks in a video game and listen to him tell stories.

My older boy happens to be the keenest judge of people I’ve ever met. He can sense if someone is a good guy or if someone is a tool. And he’s never quiet about those opinions. At school there were a couple dumb-ass teachers that I’d love to punch . . . and my son got the same vibe from these individuals and would march up to the principal’s office to demand they be fired. And he doesn’t want to fire Nico; he wants to spend every second he can with him.

Last night the boys’ dad called. My older son talked to him for all of 90 seconds then handed the phone off to me. I realized that since we moved to Metropolis, he’s never once asked about his dad or said a single thing about missing him. Never once. Like I said, he’s a keen judge of character.

For his part, Nico seems a bit shell-shocked. He’s not used to living with kids so all of this is a major adjustment. I’m trying to pace myself and give him time . . . but I’m impatient so that’s hard.