My Little Family

So there's family, there's family, and then there's family. A little clarification of that seemingly repetitive sentence is necessary, I suppose. I think that there are multiple definitions of the word family. There's the family under your roof, the family you're born into, and the family you help create - your friends that are closer than friends, your in-laws (or pseudo-in-laws, as I refer to Jeremy's family), etc.

For example, the family that I was born into includes my mom and dad, my two birth siblings, my aunt and uncle, my three deceased grandparents and my grandpa, my cousins, etc. The family I helped create includes my two "adopted" brothers, my close friends, including Aimee, Bill, Betina and Mat, Jamie-girl, and her two kids, Lola and Devon. Then, there's the family under my roof - Jeremy, me, and our two boys, which is what I'm writing about tonight.

As I mentioned before, Jeremy and I met at City Park Grill, when I hired in there. I can even tell you the exact date I was introduced to him, which was also my first day of work there: March 3, 2006. He saw me before we met, when I showed up for my second interview (I had to interview once with the then-sous chef, Brian, and had a second interview with the executive chef, Chef John Norman, the following day.), all dressed up in a pink and black plaid kilt, hose and heels, and a black satin button-down short-sleeved shirt, with my hair in an updo. I was hired that day and started work the next.

I remember when Jeremy came up to introduce himself, I was wearing an oversized loaner-coat from the office, and cleaning the fat off a corned beef brisket, preparatory to slicing it. He had on the standard black uniform, a red bandanna instead of the baseball caps everyone else was wearing, black combat boots, and two large hoop earrings. He looked like a pirate. I thought he was pretty cute. He introduced himself to me as "Jeremy, but everyone calls me Captain." I introduced myself, and at that moment, Chef walked by and said, "Captain, behave yourself."

We ended up getting to be pretty good friends over the next few months. We'd text or talk on MSN or over the phone, and we hung out outside of work a few times. I figured out finally that I was in love with him on May 21, 2006. We'd gone to see Kittie play at Streeters, down in Traverse City - the deal was that if I drove and paid for gas, he'd pay for my ticket. We went down, had dinner at McDonald's, saw the show (Know Lyfe and the Autumn Offering were the opening acts), and made it back to Petoskey for last call at Papa Lou's. Our sous chef was there, drunk and making a total ass of himself. We ended up driving him home, then went back to Jeremy's and sat outside on my car talking for a couple hours, before I left and went home.

I moved into Petoskey at the beginning of June, and got an apartment directly under his. We hung out constantly, along with his friends - my new friends - from the house behind our building, Lopp, Corey, Mat, and Lopp's friend Betina. (Mat and Betina later became a couple.)

Jeremy and I ended up becoming a couple on my 24'th birthday, June 11, 2006. (That's a story worthy of its own entry.) He moved in with me a few weeks later. We've been together ever since. That summer was quite literally one of the best of my life. I was making good money, I was in love, I was tan and thin and felt pretty for the first time ever, and most importantly, I was happy. Even though we worked opposite shifts, we still spent a lot of time together.

The day after Jeremy's 34'th birthday, I took a test and found out I was pregnant. The date was September 5'th. I was stunned. I'd had at least one miscarriage before, according to my doctor, and I honestly thought I was never going to have kids. I took seven more tests, just to make sure.

The pregnancy seemed to take forever. I read way too much about pregnancy and all the things that could possibly go wrong online. I went to the ER once, mistaking implantation cramps for the beginnings of a miscarriage. I went in a second time at 30 weeks, mistaking Braxton-Hicks contractions for the real thing.

When Matthew came, he took his sweet time in arriving - 22 hours of labor. But finally, he came, and I felt my world shift when Jeremy placed him in my arms for the first time. Nothing would ever be the same again.

I was an absolute wreck of a new mother. I had panic dreams - a bee flew in the window and stung Matthew's fontanel and pierced his brain and killed him, DHS showed up and confiscated him because I forgot to take the trash to the curb, he somehow had worms under his skin and the pediatrician told me it was because I was a bad mother, he headbutted me on the nose and killed me and Jeremy came home to find Dead Megan and Matthew on my lap covered in my blood. Dreams that seem absolutely ridiculous now, but woke me up in tears.

When I read that SIDS was more common in males than in females, that the prime age was 3-6 months old, and that it usually struck around 5:00 am, I began waking up at 3:59 am and staying awake till 6:59 am, watching him breathe. I would place two fingers on his belly every night while I waited to fall asleep, so I could monitor his breathing. I took him to the ER for mild constipation. Once, he sat up in his car seat and bumped his head on the handle - not enough to even make him cry. I wouldn't let him take a nap the rest of the day and felt his forehead (looking for a lump) so often that I literally gave him a lump.

Despite my paranoia and obsessive over-ministrations, he started growing up, and did so rapidly and healthily.

We moved from my apartment to a house a few blocks away shortly after Thanksgiving, 2006. Christmas was rapidly approaching, and I wanted to host my family's Christmas dinner at our new house, kind of a gift to my mom so that she wouldn't have to cook that year. I made up a menu, started buying things in advance, trying to keep from worrying that my period was late.

It hit 10 days late, and I finally panicked and decided to buy a test. I thought maybe it would be a funny gift for Jeremy - "Merry Christmas, honey, here's a negative pregnancy test." I couldn't be pregnant again. Matthew was only 8 months old, I was still breastfeeding, and besides, we'd used birth control.

I drove all over Petoskey, looking for a place that would still be open at 2:00 am on Christmas morning. WalMart and Glen's were closed. But Walgreen's was open. I bought one of the expensive, ClearBlue Digital tests, went home, and took it. I made Jeremy go in and read it once the timer went off. He was the one that told me I was pregnant. I was in shock.

The second pregnancy went by much faster than did the first one. I was working full time and had a toddler. I had to do physical therapy for three months - between a couple of jobs I'd had involving repeated heavy lifting, and the two pregnancies within three years, I'd developed a bulging disc in my lower back. They were able to correct it with the PT, thankfully, but I remained on Tylenol 3 for the duration of the pregnancy.

Jonah was born at 8 pm on August 22, 2008 (his labor story will be posted on his birthday). We were allowed to leave the hospital earlier than is standard for C-section patients, and we brought him home to our little house.

And here we still are. Matthew is newly 3 years old, and Jonah is 2 years and 8 months. The boys are similar in looks, but vastly different in personality. Matthew is very independent and a bit of a loner. He plays well with his brother when he feels like it, but he prefers to be left alone to do his own thing, similar to his dad as a child. Jonah is a cuddler and a people-pleaser, very outgoing. When I first saw the movie "Up," and Dug the dog said his famous line, "I have just met you and I love you," I immediately thought of Jonah. He will reach out his arms to perfect strangers, and nothing makes him happier than when we are at a family get-together and he's being handed from aunt to uncle to cousin to grandparent. He has smiles and hugs for everyone. Matthew, in the same situation, will be running around at full speed, investigating, exploring, maybe seeking out one or two people, and leading them around, naming off all the things he's found that he has words for. He enjoys showing off, as does Jonah. Both the boys are extremely stubborn - a gift from both their father and from me - but Matthew is quicker to cede his position. Jonah's a bit of a bulldozer. At one point, I didn't want Jonah climbing up on the couch unless he was seated in someone's lap, to prevent falls. Baby brother Diddy sat there, repeatedly rebuffing Jonah's attempts to climb onto the couch, and counted 46 attempts before Jonah gave up.

The boys both look far more like their father than like me, but I can see bits of myself in both of them. Matthew has reddish brown hair like I do, my hazel eyes, and the shape of our smiles are identical. Jonah has absurdly chubby cheeks that beg to be kissed, which he gets from my family, and his ears are shaped like mine as well. Matthew has the Gatica nose and Gatica feet - large, square, with very short toes. Jonah's feet are chubby, with proportionate toes like mine. Both boys have small, tan "angel-kiss" birthmarks. Matthew's is on the top of his head, and Jonah's is on his calf, in the same location as Jeremy's. Jonah also seems to have Irish eyebrows, which definitely came from my family.

Everyone agrees that Jonah looks like Jeremy. He has dark brown, nearly black hair (although it throws off red gleams in the sunlight), dark almond shaped eyes, and a complexion somewhere between mine and Jeremy's in color. (Matthew does too. Both the boys go back and forth between whose skin is darker, almost as though they're taking turns.)

Matthew, well, it's funny. When he was born, you could lay pictures of him next to pictures of Jeremy as an infant and not be able to tell a difference between the two. His face has changed drastically since he was born, and now, he looks like a blend of the two of us, although Jeremy's family all swears that he's a mini-Jeremy, and my family swears he's identical to me at that age.

Either way, everyone agrees we have beautiful children. Not to sound prejudiced (lol), but I agree. When I was pregnant with the boys, I tried to picture what they would look like when they were born. With Matthew, the best I could come up with was a mental image of myself as a baby, but with dark eyes and hair. With Jonah, I expected a duplicate of Matthew, more or less. I was surprised both times.

As for Jeremy and I, we will be celebrating our fourth anniversary as a couple in about six weeks. And no, we are not married. No, we will not be getting married. No, we have no plans of ever getting married. Let me explain.

First off, I have nothing against the concept of marriage in general. If you want to get married, fine, go for it. I am a strong supporter of legalizing gay marriage, too. I believe if you want to get married, you should be able to, male to male, male to female, female to female, hell, marry an inanimate object if you like. I don't think that gay marriage is a threat to "family" at all - who the hell says a family needs to have two different-gendered parents? I don't believe that your external plumbing affects your ability to parent. Anyway...

Jeremy and I, personally, don't believe that marriage is a necessity. First off, he comes from a broken home. My parents were separated for a year. We've both witnessed the failure of several marriages. And, this is not the 19'th century or even the beginning of the 20'th. The stigma attached to out-of-wedlock children and unwed mothers has more or less faded. Even if it hadn't, I am a strong enough person to not let it bother me if someone thinks I'm a whore for not marrying Jeremy. Why should I let someone's prejudice affect my self-worth?

Also, it's not like it's necessary to keep us together. We're going to be together for as long as we're together, regardless of what a piece of paper says. The legal status of our relationship has no bearing whatsoever on its day-to-day functionality. We work well together, just the way things stand now. Why go and change anything?