My Boys (ON HOLD)

The Park

Does it count as a date when your children are there? Jeremy and I were kind of on a date. We walked through the park and sat on a bench, but we had to make sure it was a bench close enough to the jungle gym so we could keep an eye on the boys. They were all trying to go down the slide at once, and I was snickering at them as they fell on top of each other at the end of the slide. They all got out of the pile unscathed and went to other parts of the jungle gym.

"So none of them are blood related?" Jeremy asked.

I shook my head. "Their backgrounds are actually quite diverse," I told him. "Their records say that Ken is a mix of German, Irish, English, a little bit of French, and a little bit of Native American. Felix is mostly Swedish with a little bit of Norwegian. Mark is half Korean, half German. And then Jack is mostly Irish, the rest of his ancestry being from other places in the British Isles." (A/N: I completely made up the one for Ken and since the boys were all supposed to be born in America in the story, I felt like Felix and Jack needed to be more than just one thing because a lot of Americans are.)

"And then I'm half Italian, one-quarter Danish, and one-quarter Irish," he spoke. "And you?"

"I'm one-third Irish, five-twenty-fourths English, five-twenty-fourths Welsh, one-eighth Dutch, one-sixteenth German and one-sixteenth French." (A/N: This is an approximation of what my background actually is. :))

"Wow, that's a mouthful," he chuckled. "But that's amazing. When we get married, people will be so confused when they see us and it'll be great." He grinned.

"'When'?" I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Oh come on, Jessie," he went on. "You know it's inevitable. We're perfect for each other." He leaned in and kissed me sweetly.

I smiled into the kiss. Yes, I knew it was inevitable. And that made me all the more happy.

I heard the boys making a ruckus when our lips parted. I looked over and saw Mark on the monkey bars, hanging upside-down from his legs. His brothers were staring and asking him how he did it. Even some other children were watching. He hopped down, landing on his feet and climbed up slower, demonstrating to the others how to be a monkey. Surprisingly, there was enough room for all of them to hang from the bars because they did it without knocking their heads together. I was giggling as Jeremy called out to them.

"Hey, monkeys!"

They all looked at him, then started making monkey noises. I snorted and laughed harder.

"Jeremy, what have you done?" I asked jokingly. "This is supposed to be a park, not a zoo!"

He just shrugged and laughed with me. They all eventually stopped and got off the monkey bars, probably feeling the beginnings of blood rushing to their heads. Felix was the last to get off, and unlike everyone else, who had landed on their feet, he landed on his butt.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" I called.

"Yeah," he said, getting up and brushing the dirt off of his butt. I saw him look to his right and focus on something.

I looked in the same direction to see Mark chasing after a squirrel with Jack close behind him. He dove, trying to catch it, but the squirrel was too fast and it climbed up a tree before Mark could even get up.

"But I'm king of the squirrels!" He pouted and Jack helped him up.

I laughed more. 'King of the squirrels'? It had to have been something he saw on TV.

I got up and rounded up all the boys, counting heads to make sure no one was missing. I drove us all to the Italian restaurant Jeremy's father owned for lunch, and we ate my favorite foods: pasta and pizza. I secretly envied the boys because they got crayons and coloring pages and I didn't. But my heart completely melted when I saw what Ken was drawing.

Two taller stick figures and four smaller ones, all holding hands and smiling.

Maybe I was good at this parenting thing after all.