Ruth and I didn’t discuss how many children we wanted until after we married. We were engaged about twenty-two hours so getting married was our focus, not the number of children we’d have. During our first conversation, Ruth lobbied for t wo, and I wanted three. My preference was two boys and a girl. With the aid of mother nature, things ultimately went my way. We had David and Michael sandwiched around Elizabeth.
We did our best to do fun things with the kids. Since we lived on a lake, we spent a lot of time in and on the water. We took annual trips to Myrtle Beach, made trips to Florida, the East Coast, Kentucky, Canada, and explored our home state extensively. We knew we had a window of time before they would want to go their separate ways, so we made the most of the time we had.
David’s graduation from high school in 1993 began the great transformation. Our family dynamic changed each time one went off to college. We had Elizabeth and Michael for two years after Dave left, and then Michael by himself for his senior year after Elizabeth began her college career. You raise them to be independent, and when they are, you miss what you had.
They came home for the summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas but once they found independence, the dynamic changed. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Ultimately, they all began their careers, fell in love, married, and have families of their own. They started in the same place but took different paths to where they are today. They’ve each developed their own version of living “happily ever after”.
You can choose your friends, but not your relatives. Our three kids were born when you got what you got. Each birth was a surprise.
You needed to have both boy and girl names at the ready. If I could step back in time and choose, I’d pick the three we got by chance. I know people who’d like a “do over” when it comes to their kids. Not me.