Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

From the Facebook status files, December 2012:

(Ryan) Hooray! After being buried 24 hours in a bowl of dry rice, Justin's wet digital camera now works fine again! Of course, now he's boxing on Wii Sports and coming dangerously close to punching the TV screen out.

(Adam) Erin gave us an air popcorn popper and I must say, the kids are finding this old school procedure absolutely riveting. Begone, Orville! You and your fat-laden microwave bags!

(Richard) Was just Skyping with Justice at Aunt Erin's. I asked what she's having for dinner tonight. She said "boogers".

(Ryan) Speculation seems to abound this morning on whether or not Tinkerbell wears panties. Justice is weighing in heavily in the "yes" camp, while Justin vehemently rejects it.

(Adam) Me: make sure you check in with me every so I know where you are.
Justin: Okay, i will check in with you every four minutes.
Me: Okay.
Justin: Daddy, how long is four minutes?

(Ryan) Basic female anatomy, as described at our house:
Justin (giggling): Justice has China.
Adam: What do you mean? China is a country.
Justice (disgusted with him, rolling her eyes): He means I have a pagina.

(Adam) Getting dressed for synagogue tonight and my daughter told me I wasn't dressed nice enough. She insisted I change. Oy vey.

(Ryan) Justice's pagina drew several happy comments at the bar mitzvah party we went to last night. There's no such thing as bad press.

(Ryan) Who is that screechy witch woman on the Power Rangers, and doesn't she understand it's 8:30 in the morning?

(Ryan) Breakfast. Power Rangers. Sunday School. Power Rangers. Lunch at Taco Bell. Power Rangers. New Bikes for Hanukkah. Power Rangers. I'm beginning to see a pattern emerge.

(Adam) Me: Justin, unbutton your pants before you take them off. You'll growing, and one day you'll just pop the button off.
Justin: So? If I'm growing, I won't be able to wear the pants then.
Me: Uh...

(Ryan) Justin, now a confirmed size 7, has a pair of size 6 skinny jeans he can barely zip up, but he refuses to part with them. He calls them "my cute jeans."

(Adam) Evening conversation:
Justice: Daddy, what kind of pizza dough do you like better, fresh or frozen?
Me: Fresh.
Justice: And there's a only a limited time left to get a new car.
Me: You know, you can skip commercials if you're watching the Tivo.
Justice: Oh. Yeah. (runs out of my office).

(Adam) J1 and J2 are sitting on the kitchen floor right now playing the dreidel game. Every tiime it lands on a gimel, the loser screams bloody murder.

(Ryan) Rock climbing in the moutains outside of Las Vegas. Thank you, God, for giving my children a playground of mountains.

(Adam) The scariest sentence heard at our house: "Daddy, guess what Justin did."

               * * * * * * *

The Scandinavian painter Edvard Munch, best known for The Scream (1893), once wrote, "I will no longer paint interiors of people reading and women knitting, but rather living beings who breathe and feel, suffer and love."

I hope that's what this online diary has been this year...a place to store our earliest family memories in real time, in real fashion, raw and fresh as they'll ever be.

A poster at the top of our stairs reads:

In this house, we do real.
We do mistakes.
We do I'm sorry.
We do second chances.
We do fun.
We do hugs.
We do foregiveness.
We do really loud.
We do family.
We do love.

We do all of these things, Daddy, Justin, Justice and me...some better than others, some with the inborn instinct of the billion lives and loves that came before us, some with the panic or patience of hopeful exhaustion, and some, quite frankly, with nothing but the awkward baby steps of four new souls born into a brand new universe together, stumbling and learning day by day, the best we can, to love and take care of each other.

I've learned a few things along the way.

First, children aren't accessories. They weren't put in this world to make my life complete and satisfy the picture-perfect family dream I once carried in my mind. It was apparent from day one that what I need has little to do with this. Starting at square one, this endeavor has been all about them, plain and simple. Rediscovering myself in the midst of such enormous change is a painful and joyous experience, like any radical rebirth would have to be. It's not about "how do I make them fit into my life," it's about "how can I make a new life for all of us, where we all fit each other." They have needs and expectations that far surpass my own. If that doesn't knock you on your ass and teach you humility, nothing will.

Secondly, friends will come and friends will go. Like any era, we circle in and out of each other's lives - "all my life's a circle," sang Harry Chapin - but perhaps that circle is never as sharply defined as when new children enter the picture. Some who we loved and counted as our closest friends removed themselves from our daily life entirely, with excuses of their own, but underneath, not quite sure how our new incarnation as a family fit into their comfort zone and past experience of us as a neat and unencumbered couple. Our two becoming four worked for many, but it did not work for all. And although we understand it, we miss their comfort and their company.

Other close friends became even dearer, filling our ears and hearts with incredible encouragement and compassion.

"Off into the sunset, I hope," I wrote in a photo I posted of me and Justice in Red Rock Canyon, bundled up in the afternoon chill, mountains behind us, mountains ahead, her on my shoulders, me trying, as I do every day, to carry an enormous new weight of responsibility like I've never known before.

"If someday this little girl loves me 1/100th as much as I love her right now," I wrote, "we will be just fine."

"She already does," Dale wrote back. "It's just locked inside, being obstructed by a lot of pain and uncertainty. But you're getting through it, and before you know it, it will catch you both by surprise. You've been a giant blessing to each other. It just takes a little time for it to show itself."

Those are the friends, the brothers and sisters, who last a lifetime.

I wrote a poem once, in baby-step transitioning days a long time ago that ended, "I'm standing right now on the edge of Nevada. Desert sun is a curious thing. Sometimes it burns, but sometimes I smile. There are no clouds here."

For Adam and me, days may be challenging, but the future is cloudless. As we welcome the continued solidity 2013 will bring for our new family, we have never been more fully convinced that we were meant to do this, and that all of us, the "4" in "Fly4You," are uniquely situated and uniquely qualified to continue on this combined, courageous journey. More and more sunlight just keeps breaking through.

We just don't care how people see us anymore.

"Two or three things I know for sure," wrote Dorothy Allison in her book of the same title, "One is that I'd rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."

So that's my New Year's resolution. To no longer define ourselves in the world's language for us. Gay dads? Special needs kids? How about just  "family." That's what we are now. That's what we turned into. Labels mean nothing.

My son's name is Justin. My daughter's name is Justice.

And Adam and I will keep loving them and learning them for years. For a lifetime to come.

We're glad you came with us this year. This story is just beginning.

Happy New Year.