You can pack a lot of activity into one 12 hour period.
Sunday's adventure in dating began at 12 noon when DD showed up at my house with his girls, ready to head to the pool for an afternoon of swimming. We packed a strolled and walked down the street, my boyfriend, me and our 3 kids.
The thing I'm liking about having 3 kids in the mix is that the older 2 watch after the younger 1. The bonus is for everyone. The girls feel like they're mothering a toddler. I get to mother a toddler, but also enjoy myself as an adult and play in the pool with the girls and DD. And, I got to lay out with having to keep an eye cracked upon for the 2-year-old who would undoubtedly fall in the pool.
Glorious.
After the pool, we headed back to my house to get ready for father's day dinner. Once the kisd were changed and playing in my son's room, I announced I was going to hop in the shower to get ready.
"Maybe I'll join you," DD said with a wink.
I gave him a look. "There are 3 children in the other room," I reminded him.
Somehow, as I finished conditioning my hair and started to soap up in the shower, DD appears in a suddenly open shower door. I repeat my LOOK.
"They're all playing. And I need to shower too," he says with not even a half-assed attempt at innocence as he gets in and makes a pass at me.
I stubbornly act like I'm going to get clean and get the heck out, when he suddenly steals the loofah from me and turns me away from him.
A few moments later he releases me with a cocky grin on his face.
"That's just a teaser for later," he promises as I try to get my brain to come back online.
I give him a dirty look and get out of the shower to get ready, precious moments lost to shower fun.
When he gets out five minutes later, I find that I'm grinning like an idiot.
"You know what's so great?" I ask. "You can have kids and still have a sex life!"
This makes him laugh, because it's cleary not the world's biggest revelation. I hadn't given it much thought, but I had clearly put on my "mom hat" and taken it off for my "girl hat" as time and dating dictated. I had never thought about how you really integrated the 2. I mean, married couples do it, I'm sure (or maybe they don't and that's where all the sex complaints come from) but I'm nearly giddy to discover we can go play at the pool with our children and then come home and have some discreet sexy playtime and then get ready to go out to dinner with the family. This is blissful madness, I tell you!
We then made a big old blended family step and went to dinner for father's day with all the kids and my father and my sister and her boyfriend.
I had another "holy shit is this for real?" moment at that dinner, especially as I chatted with my dad while DD's youngest played with my son and his oldest made cute little crayon nametags for him. It was DD who rounded up my son as I was paying the bill. Is this what family life is like? Not doing everything on your own?
What else is blended family life like? Having to disperse the children to the corners of the world. We were headed to a Chelsea Handler concert and had to stop at my house to deposit my son with my mother, pick up my friend, then head to deposit HIS kids with THEIR mother before running to Houlihan's to meet the rest of the crew that I was driving to the concert.
I'm riding a high of family and shower sex when, at Houlihan's, DD pulls a coup de grace and pays for everyone's drinks, including my 3 girlfriends. This is a SMART play. I am impressed and proud, the girls are having some instant "you can buy our love" and I just want to jump on him and kiss him. This day is kicking some ass.
We go see a comedy concert with Chelsea Handler that makes me laugh so hard I cry a few times before heading home. I drop all of our friends off at their cars, then we go to retrieve my sleeping son.
We arrive home to a house that somehow the AC has been turned off in and it is flipping HOT. I put my son down, crank the AC and go to my room to see a sweltering DD laying in his underwear on the bed. Visions of shower sex dance in my head, and I unzip my dress and lay down beside him in only my underwear with a "it's so HOT" lament to cover my actions.
"I want to talk to you about something," he says.
I deflate instantly. Son of a bitch.
"Yeah?" I say, wishing I could grab a t-shirt. Why does he catch me at times like this to have "talks?" I can't take a conversation seriously without a bra on.
"I know it's really insanely early to be talking about this, but with your lease up in two months..."
Oh, holy f-er. I knew this was coming. Ever since I got home, and even a couple time before that, he's made elusive vague commments about thinking "crazy things" about me sometimes based on how awesome everything is going between us. These followed with pointed questions about my dream house and how I want to get married have left little to my imagination that, for whatever reason, homeboy thinks he's his a jackpot and he wants to lock this redhead DOWN.
I have been very good at not asking any questions or changing the subject when he's made these comments. However, just the previous day when talking about how I had put in my notice at my townhome and what I was looking for in a new place, we had the following exchange:
"Have you looked at rental houses?" he wanted to know.
"Yes. Prices are good but they have YARDS. I don't want to shovel snow or mow a lawn. I don't have time," I say, having thought about it extensively. There are a lot of things I'm doing on my own wearing my WonderMom cape and being a working single moter...I have no desire to add lawncare to that.
"I would come mow your lawn. I have a mower," DD says.
I give him the most arched eyebrow I can afford him.
"Yeah, but are you going to be around in a year to do that?" I ask snarkily.
He frowns. "Are you assuming that I'm not?"
I roll my eyes. "No, but I'm not hedging my bets and ending up having to a mow a frickin lawn next June."
End of conversation.
So, I am not entirely surprised, but definitely overcome with a sense of unease as DD on Sunday evening lays out the facts...my lease is up in August, he's staying where he's at till he graduates in December, if he gets a 1 year lease in December that means it will be the NEXT summer before we could potentially live together and...
"...and, at some point...I'm going to want to live with you," he finishes.
Urgh.
"How do you feel about that?"
Double urgh.
"There is...a lot...to consider before something like that," I pad. I've been thinking about it. It's not that I haven't. One of the factors in biting the bullet to leave my place and look for te 3-bedroom I've been talking about for 6 months is so that when he has his girls they have a place to stay that isn't my couch. I've been doing recon on finances and living situations with my friends...why, you might ask? So that when this conversation came up MANY MONTHS downt the line, I was prepared for it.
I'm not prepared enough.
We talk for a while about what it would mean - having to discuss finances, etc. and, from a time stand point, I finally say:
"Bottom line is that...we're in the honeymoon phase. We both think that the other one shits sunshine and that's not going to last. We are flawed and you will be thoroughly annoyed by me at some point..." (perhaps it will be my inability to committ without kicking and screaming about it) "...and it takes...time...for those things to manifest."
He agrees but says "I don't know, I just know" with regard to us being something that is going to end with rainbows and bells and heavens parting.
I am quiet. HOW does he know? Am I an asshole for NOT knowing? Shouldn't experience have taught him to take things slow? OR has experience taught him to recognize a good thing when he sees it? Am I really that good of a thing? This seems like a huge amount of build-up for one little redhead to live up to. Also, is my independance dented by the idea of having someone at home? The idea is both appealing and repulsive.
"I have a lot to think about," I finally announce.
He fumbles a response about my search for a new place and I finally close the subject by saying that I would love him to have some input in my new place and he could come with me or look at places with me, but that for the moment, what I want will be what I get. I'll get a place I can afford with or without him, etc. etc. etc.
He agrees with this although I can tell he wants more. I'm flattered and freaked by this. Stop trying to lock me down, man! I said I love you, what more do you WANT from me?
Answer: apparently, everything.
And thus, at midnight, a very eventful 12 hours on one single Sunday has passed.
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