you find family in many different ways...

I am a true believer that this man was put in my life for a very specific reason. It has been almost 25 years since I walked over to my neighbor's yard, batted my big brown eyes and asked whatcha doin'? From that moment on, he says, I won his heart. My Milo I call him. I find myself explaining to people more and more these days what "relationship" we have or "how he fits in the family picture". He has been the primary pick up for Parker at preschool and I had to fill out that little form that says who he is. Well that little blank space wasn't nearly enough room for me to tell the teacher what "relationship" he is to me and my boys...so I simply wrote Papa. No questions were asked, she didn't have a problem with him picking up Parker. Then it came time to order pictures for preschool, the most logical package (most expensive) only has 2 5x7's-because most families have two sets of grandparents-well my boys? They got lucky-they have three! So I easily justify spending and extra $10 for another sub-package to get a 5x7 for all the Papa's and Grandma's.
This man never had children of his own with his wife, AKA Grandma Peggy (Piggy-if Parker says it) and says I am all he needed. He taught me how to love a man as a father figure, to respect myself, to pull the tendon of a detached partridge claw to make the toes move and how a Papa can love his grandchildren.
He is full of corny jokes that I don't understand half the time, has the patience to explain them to me without judging me, is an expert Man's-Man...he can build, fix, teach and destruct any type of home improvement project with my husband and we have full confidence that it is done properly. He is sure to divide his time with both of my boys equally, never favoring one over the other, but makes sure that they both spend individual time with him. When picking Parker up from preschool-they have developed a ritual of high-fiving as the line of kids-on-a-rope come in from the playground. Today he lectured Parker on not eating boogers and told him he was better off wiping them on his shirt than eating them.

For the past 8 years My Milo has come over to our house for a weekly visit. Thursday's are Milo night in our house. First it started as a Survivor-watching night, then the babies came and Survivor got turned off and old time Country music got turned on. I absolutely am amazed at all the words he can remember to those old songs. We all love to dance around the living room and play air-hockey stick-guitar together.

He has taught Parker, like me when I was little, how to say This Little Piggy in Norwegian...he is working on Emmitt-the One Who Doesn't Speak-too, but it'll be awhile. He has routines with the boys when he is ready to leave and they are ready for bed...they each go with Papa to hear the wind chimes we have in the corner. They are ceramic wind chimes and have held up well through many bangings by little ones. He does Lil' Toe, Toe Til', Til a Roo, Mega Fru, Stoda Cruba Hasten with the boys, puts on their jammies (he doesn't do diapers), does The Bumble Bees are coming from the barn and they are going to stick you in the arm-the boys just giggle with anticipation of that familiar poke in the ribs...as he pulls away in his "bumpy old truck" the boys scream out the window-Papa, Papa and wave frantically as he drives away beeping his horn at them. As I stand behind them thanking God that he put My Milo...My Dad in my life and that I am lucky enough to share him with my family.