Life During Fatherhood: Life (and Death) Lessons
Posted by Blaine on Saturday 12 April 2031 at 9:43PM EST

When the big things happen, the life-altering moments and events that shift your entire world and turn it upside down, you're almost never prepared for them. I'm not talking about the ones that you plan, like going for the job you've been coveting for years, or moving house, or starting a family. Those are changes where the journey can be long, where you have the time to consider, and adjust, and watch the dust settle. I'm talking about the things that hit you in an unexpected and painful bolt from the blue, the things that you have no way of bracing yourself for until it's already too late.

This week, we've had to say goodbye to our perpetually unimpressed, curmudgeonly prince of a cat, McQueen. And this week, Kurt and I have undertaken the unenviable task of trying to help our two confused five-year-olds wrap their young minds around the concept of loss.

McQueen first became a part of our lives when I was working on one of the Disney cruise ships after college graduation. It was the longest period of time that Kurt and I had spent apart since our year-long separation during his first year at NYU, and while we went into it knowing what to expect, it was nonetheless difficult. In my first letter home, I suggested that Kurt get a cat for company (I may also have suggested Chairman Miaow as the best name for our new addition, and of course Kurt came up with something much more fitting).

When I returned home, it was to a far less forgiving carbon copy of Kurt, in feline form. He regarded me with cold, green eyes, watching my every move and judging me at every turn. Eventually, we reached an understanding: he ruled the roost, and I was the dorky one who cleaned out his litter box. Because of this, he tolerated my picking him up and running new material by him. We even developed a code. If he yawned, it was no good; if he blinked, it was passable but needed work; if he turned in my arms and pushed his head into the crook of my elbow—and this happened very rarely—then I was onto a winner. Our understanding took root, and blossomed as far as it was able over the years (in fact, I'd go so far as to say that he harbored a certain reluctant fondness for me after the twins, at two years old, discovered his tail).

We were used to being in one another's quarters, and shared some moments that touched my heart, as evidenced in past posts here (tagged “mcqueen's catwalk” if you're so inclined to read). Ultimately, we got along. And even after being with us for fourteen years, it didn't occur to me that he would one day leave us to go search out that mouse farm in the sky that all good cats are promised. But on Sunday morning, Kurt and I woke up to cold feet and an empty space at the end of the bed. We found McQueen on top of the refrigerator—his old go-to sleeping spot—curled up with his tail across his nose. He could have been sleeping.

It was, in a word, awful. Both of us have been lucky over the years to have had less than our fair share of grief, but that in itself seems, at this point, something of a double-edged sword. We were unprepared for this. Watching Kurt standing on a chair to pick up McQueen from his perch and cradle him like he used to—and seriously, there was nothing that this cat wouldn't let my husband do—was utterly heartbreaking, and all I could do was take him into the living room and hold him while he grieved.

When the kids came downstairs, bleary-eyed and in search of breakfast (thank God it was a weekend—when I was about eight, there was a day where I had to go to school knowing that our dog, Skate, probably wouldn't be waiting for me at the door when I got home), I took them into the kitchen and quietly made my approximation of French toast while Kurt composed himself enough to call the vet. And the twins, in all of their impossible, five-year-old wisdom, sensed that something was amiss. Of course they did. Even at their tender age, they're still two of the most empathic people I know. So I explained to them, as clearly and carefully as I could, that McQueen was gone. That when people and animals have lived as long as they're supposed to, and as long as they've been good, they get to go to Heaven. Which brought up the inevitable questions.

“What's Heaven like?” and, “Is Heaven where Grandpa Will is now?” and, “Do they have the right kitty treats there?” and of course, “If you have to be good to get in, does that mean you get coal if you're bad?”

Under different circumstances, that last one would have kept me chuckling all day, but home was a somber, quiet space that day. It has been all week. All of us have been watching corners, looking out into the yard, jumping whenever we've seen something from the corner of our eyes, only to be disappointed and a little heartbroken all over again.

On Thursday, Kurt brought home a small wooden box of ashes, and today we drove out to the Hamptons house to bury it beneath the cherry tree in the garden. Each of us held the box—to which Kurt (in true Kurt style) had made a few stylized additions—and said a few words.

“I'll miss your cuddles, they were the best,” said Oliver, which Audrey followed with, “you were my favoritest kitty ever.”

“Thanks for listening, buddy,” I told him, before whispering conspiratorially, “you were right about that last riff, by the way. Disaster. I'll do better, I promise.”

When Kurt took the box from me and set it in the ground, fingertips touching the tag from McQueen's collar that he placed on top, he had no words, only the soft mewling sound that he always made to tell McQueen, “I love you.” Just like with our high school mascot, Pavarotti, the two of them had their own secret language. Perhaps when this sadness has lifted a little, I'll tell you about the time I caught them having a full-blown conversation in the den. For now, though, I'm going to join my husband on the porch swing with a glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and see if I can find McQueen somewhere amongst the stars.

*

Life During Fatherhood: The Sound Of Silence
Posted by Kurt on Monday 25 August 2031 at 7:52PM EST

Change has always been something that's difficult for me to keep up with. Ever the man for having plans A and B, followed by anywhere up to three contingency plans carefully filed away, when something hits me from nowhere, it's not a rare reaction for me to retreat from the very thing that has blindsided me in order to deal with it.

They don't tell you about the small, everyday changes—I suppose because something are good sense, some are instinctive and some are a little bit of both. I've been guilty of this myself, of course (I'll never forget the puzzled expression on Blaine's face when he pulled a still-stained sleeper suit of Oliver's from the washing machine—I hadn't thought to tell him that our usual quick wash setting just wouldn't cut it), but most of the time I feel like we're stumbling through our days wearing blinkers. You could read all the parenting books ever written and still feel just as unprepared for the day ahead when you wake up in the morning. To be a parent is to be in a state of constant, unrelenting, adaptive evolution, and when your world suddenly grows quiet, sometimes it can feel like you've run headlong into a brick wall. You're left dazed, sore, and grappling to understand what happened and what to do next.

Today was that day for Blaine and I. For all that they tell you about what changes, they don't really tell you about what changes back.

This morning, for the first time in my life, I found myself packing more than just snacks for the kids to take to preschool with them. I made honest-to-God peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, because today was their first day of kindergarten. And it feels like only yesterday that I was dashing across the Brooklyn Bridge in a desperate attempt to be there for their birth. It really is true what they say: the days are long, but the years are short.

And I was fine. Really, I was. Blaine and I both canceled our days so that we could take the kids to school and be there to welcome them home again. We gave them their breakfast, helped them pick their first day outfits, made sure they had everything, and walked them to school. They've been doing it ever since starting preschool, so when they ran up the steps and into the building, of course it shouldn't have been any different than a regular day. But all at once it hit me—there would be no more mid-afternoon calls home from my studio, because they wouldn't be there. I missed them already, and I'm not ashamed to say that it took all I had to keep from grabbing them up and taking them home with us—anything to hold onto them for just one more day.

Once we'd met with their teacher and the kids had effectively shooed all parents from the building, Blaine and I decided to head to Gorilla for a coffee. Which is when the silence began. We held hands on top of the table and played footsie underneath, feeling newly teen-aged, and except for the occasional word here or laugh there, we were quiet. Settled. Peaceful.

And it was weird as hell. It wasn't that we had nothing to say to one another—it was that, for the first time in five and a half years, we had the simple gift of silence. Nothing to do, nowhere we needed to be (until 3pm, at least), and it was, in a word, weird. By the way Blaine was fidgeting, I could tell that he felt the same.

We went home soon after, spent some quality time together, and around noon I found myself taking a bath while Blaine read a real newspaper in the bedroom. All the while, we kept our words to a minimum in an unspoken agreement that during these few precious hours, we would rediscover the sound of silence. By the time I got out of the bath, though, I felt more restless than I had since the month before the twins were born. I was utterly and completely bored. Blaine had, by that point, moved from reading the newspaper to reorganizing his extensive collection of bow ties. We took one look at each other and burst out laughing.

By 2:30, we were already at the school, having managed to distract ourselves for as long as we possibly could. When the twins emerged, all bright smiles with hands full of paintings they'd made and permission slips for a field trip to the Natural History Museum, both talking nineteen words to the dozen about how much they loved "grown-up school", something inside me let out a sigh of relief.

As we started the walk home, Audrey taking Blaine's hand and Oliver taking mine, my husband paused briefly to look back at me and smile knowingly. It was a smile that said, “The mild tinnitus is worth it, right?”

And do you know something? It is. It really is.

*

Life During Fatherhood: Kidspeak
Posted by Blaine on Friday 24 December 2032 at 10:13PM EST

Some of you wonderful readers have asked for an entry dedicated to what you all seem to be calling "kidspeak". In the spirit of the 12 Days of Christmas, I'll present you with 12 of my favorites from over the years, in no particular order (you guys are lucky that I constantly carry around a notepad with me, because my memory seems to be getting worse with every passing day).

1. Around the time that the twins were three, Kurt and I were trying to wrangle Oliver into his clothes on a day when he really, really did not want to be wearing any. After about five minutes of chasing him around his room, Kurt stood up, hands on hips, and said, "Oliver, behave!" Oliver's response? "I'm being haive!"

2. Ever since learning to read, Audrey has had an insatiable hunger for the written word. She's in the process of working her way through the entire contents of the school library, and still finds the time to supplement her addiction with lists of ingredients on shampoo bottles, recipes and serving suggestions on food packets, and the other day, she even brought home the instruction manual for her best friend's new cell phone (why does a six-year-old need a cell phone?). Last night, I found her at the dinner table with an entire box of Animal Crackers spread out in front of her. When I asked her what she was doing, she calmly informed me, "The box says you can't eat them if the seal is broken. I'm looking for the seal."

3. Two years ago, my brother Cooper and his long-term girlfriend Kristy got married. As with everything they do together, it was completely spur of the moment (how they managed to get a church at such short notice is still a mystery to me) and as such, they didn't have time for a rehearsal. The day of their wedding, I was standing up for Cooper and when Oliver appeared at the end of the aisle, I'd never been prouder. As he began making his way down the aisle, he would take two steps, stop, and turn to the guests (alternating between Kristy's side and Cooper's), put his hands up like claws, and roar. Step, step, ROAR, step step, ROAR, all the way down the aisle. The guests were near tears from laughing so hard by the time he reached the pulpit. Oliver, however, was getting more and more distressed from all the laughing and was almost crying by the time he reached us. When I asked him what he was doing, he sniffed and said, "I was being the Ring Bear."

4. Never the type of parents to actively stifle our children or try to force our own beliefs on them, what could Kurt and I do when Audrey came home one day before the summer asking if she could go to Sunday School with one of her friends? Having never been myself, I was curious, and I spoke with the teacher, who was kind enough to let me sit in. According to the teacher, the previous week the kids were asked to look at the Ten Commandments and come back ready to talk about them. It seems that, unbeknownst to myself and Kurt, Audrey has been discussing them all week with the same friend who asked her to come along. Soon enough, the discussion progressed to the commandment that speaks about honoring one's parents, and one of the kids piped up, "What about brothers and sisters? Is there a commandment for them?" Without missing a beat, Audrey replied, "Thou shalt not kill."

5. Ever since we taught the twins how to use the phone in case they ever need to dial 911 (heaven forbid), Oliver has developed a bit of an obsession with answering it, no matter where he is in the house. One evening a few months ago, I got held up at the studio and when I called home, Oliver answered, panting heavily. "Hey, Twist. You sound out of breath," I told him. He took a deep breath in, and replied, "No, I have more."

6. As a result of Audrey's aforementioned love of books, it can sometimes be difficult to get her to go to sleep, because she's become quite adept at bedtime-stalling tactics. One particular favorite of mine, heard as I passed by her open bedroom door after tucking in Oliver: “Papa, I dropped your kiss on the floor; I need a new one.”

7. In between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, Kurt and I were having a thinly-veiled disagreement about whether we should go back to Ohio for the holidays or invite our families to stay with us. While I can now look back and realize that the stance Kurt took was the right one, at the time I was probably spoiling for a fight and just didn't want to back down. Kurt was sitting on the floor tugging a brush through Oliver's curls, when Oliver piped up, "You know, Daddy, you should just do what Papa says. He's always right anyway." Kurt's smug smile didn't last long, however, when Oliver continued, "But if he's mad at you, don't let him brush your hair."

8. "Daddy, can Santa hear when I toot?” I think this one pretty much speaks for itself.

9. When Audrey was about three, she had a cold and was using a humidifier at night. When I was rinsing it out in the sink, Oliver came by and asked me what it was. I didn't think he would be able to fully grasp how and why it worked, so I just told him that it was for his sister's runny nose. After a long pause, I thought he had just accepted my answer, but then he asked me, "How are you going to fit that in her nose?"

10. At four years old, Audrey decided she wanted to mainly be left to dress herself. There were, of course, some obvious stumbling blocks. Namely, one morning she came downstairs already dressed for preschool, before she had eaten her breakfast. Kurt took one look at her—that's all it took; in his industry you have to have the Manhattan Once-Over down pat—and said, "Sweetheart, you have your shoes on the wrong feet." To which Audrey replied, "But I don't have any other feet!"

11. I'm sure that all of you remember the violent thunderstorms we had in NY this summer. One evening, Kurt was tucking Oliver into bed and I found myself leaning in the doorway, having just left a sleeping Audrey. Kurt was just about to turn off the light when in a small and tremulous voice, Oliver said, "Papa, will you sleep in here tonight?" When Kurt gently said no, that he had to sleep in Daddy's room, Oliver was silent for a count of three before saying, "The big sissy."

12. And finally, a Christmas-themed one to round this out. At breakfast a couple weeks ago, I was asking Audrey what she was hoping Santa would bring. When she answered that she wanted the recycling truck, I told her that maybe she should send a letter to Santa. After a moment's serious consideration, she told me that she'd decided she wanted to send him the letter 'd'.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year from the Hummel-Andersons!

*

Life During Fatherhood: The Mom Talk
Posted by Kurt on Sunday 27 May 2033 at 9:01PM EST

Blaine and I count ourselves very lucky indeed that Audrey and Oliver attend such a progressive and inclusive school, with a zero-tolerance bullying policy. Our children have, thankfully, thus far enjoyed a relatively peaceful time at school, concerned more with having the latest and most stylish rucksacks and pencil cases than who their parents are. What we've realized this week, however, is that it only takes one throw-away remark to move kids into asking the big questions.

Questions such as, “Papa, why don't we have a mommy?”

We've always known that this would come up sooner or later, of course. In fact, ever since a month or so ago when I noticed the twins gazing somewhat thoughtfully around the playground at their friends' sets of parents, I've thought often of my high school guidance counselor, who seemed to have a pamphlet for everything (most of which were full of insightful and easy-to-read advice penned by her own fair hand). I understand that she's still enjoying her well-deserved tenure back home, but this is one of those times that I dearly wish she were here for me to lean on.

Naturally, my husband has come up with various creative ways of broaching such a sensitive subject with the kids. It began with the idea of penning a song (which was something I was all for, having spent the better part of my adolescence expressing my innermost thoughts and feelings almost exclusively through music). However, the very next day he came home late, and crawled into bed lamenting the rarity of words that rhyme with 'surrogate' and instead extolling the virtues of hand puppets.

“Think about it, Kurt! They're fun, and engaging, and creative! Plus, you know your way around a sewing machine and you'd get to play with Fun Felt! Seriously, it's a win-win situation.”

Straight afterward, I learned that my husband is not, as I had previously thought, immune to the patented Hummel Eyebrow Arch.

A week later, I found him in his studio. It was dark, save for the light of a single torch. Yes, readers. You've guessed correctly. Puppets of a different kind. And yes, you'd also be correct in thinking that my husband is one of the dorkiest goobers in existence.

After working his way through a veritable myriad of other options—including a play (vetoed), writing a book (also vetoed), and, most bizarrely of all, a jigsaw puzzle (definitely vetoed)—he finally collapsed onto the couch next to me one evening and said, after a heavy sigh, “Maybe we should just sit them down and talk to them about it.”

Biting my tongue against the urge to blurt out, “That's what I've been saying all along,” I simply patted his knee and smiled.

What we didn't anticipate, however, was Oliver's sullen mood all the way through dinner the very next day. He picked at his food, fidgeted and slumped in his seat, and wouldn't even respond when Audrey tried to start a conversation with him in Twinglish. Never the type to force my kids to eat if they don't want to—despite the fact that he must have been hungry, given how much he takes after Blaine and inhales his food while Audrey and I sit there and side-eye them both—I grudgingly let it go and started clearing up. It was as I was rinsing off the last plate to load into the dishwasher that he tugged on my sleeve and asked, “Papa, why don't we have a mommy?”

I'll admit it: when I turned around and saw the terrified look on his face (like he thought that, by asking, he was breaking some rule he didn't even know about), I froze. Not to mention that there was probably some highly unattractive gaping. But Blaine, my wonderful white knight, came to my rescue and ushered us all into the family room. It was there that my husband and I stumbled our way through explaining that all families are different. Some kids have a mom and a dad, some have two moms or two dads, some have their aunts, uncles, or grandparents. “It just so happens that you two were meant to have a daddy and a papa,” I told them. The underlying conversation that I was silently holding with Blaine throughout had us both coming to the same conclusion—at seven years old, the twins were simply too young to grasp the intricacies of surrogacy (intricacies which I didn't even fully understand until my late teens, after a particularly enlightening and brutally conversation with the effervescent Ms. Berry), and we both felt woefully under-prepared to respond to the one question we dreaded ever hearing: “Didn't she want us?”

We'll tell them in time, of course. I'm sure it will be plenty difficult for all of us, and one key relationship in their lives will change—only for the better, I hope—but we will always be around for them to call family. To look at, to hold hands with, and know that they are wanted and loved without condition. We knew this was never going to be easy, but then, hardly anything worth doing ever is.

One of the few exceptions to that rule? Sitting in a circle on the living room floor next to your loving husband and two beautiful children, gathered around a Cherry Crumb cheesecake from Junior's, each armed with a fork. That's as worth doing as breathing, and about as easy.

*

Life During Fatherhood: Before Our Time
Posted by Blaine on Friday 13 June 2036 at 11:01PM EST

Do you know what I slowly came to realize over the course of the past couple weeks, readers? Our kids are growing up. Not only that: with increasing age comes increasing self-awareness, and increasing need to assert a sense of independence—particularly from us 'embarrassing parents'. That's right, readers. Kurt and I are now officially an embarrassment to our children.

“But they're only ten!” I hear you say. “Shouldn't this be a few years away, when they hit their teens and their crazy hormones start making them want to listen to heavy metal and slam the doors to their messy bedrooms?”

Yup. I thought the same. Until the cake walk. For those of you who don't know what that is, in short, it's like musical chairs but with cakes. People taking part walk around a set of marked squares, and stay where they are when the music stops. If you land on a specially marked square, you get a cake, and this goes on (sometimes for hours) until all the cakes have been won. All of the parents are expected to contribute a cake, and every year, Kurt has managed to outdo himself (and mostly everyone else while he's at it). Last semester, it was a seven-layer white chocolate and raspberry chiffon cake. Yes, I'm serious.

It was also last semester that he decided he'd had quite enough, although not in the way you might think. I'd had to miss the walk due to work commitments, and I came home to find Kurt with folders upon folders spread across the island in the kitchen, sketchbook in front of him and his face set in concentration. He was drawing rapidly, sweeping his pencil across the page in long strokes while muttering quietly to himself.

“Working on the new line, honey?” I asked him, but stopped dead when I saw what all of the folders were open at. Pictures of cakes. “Oh, no.”

Then he looked up at me, all wide eyes and feigned innocence behind his glasses—and he still manages to pull that off, even at our age—and said, “What?”

The thing about Kurt is that he's very good at getting what he wants. Somehow, and I have no clue how he does it, he manages to come up with an idea and make you think it was yours. Perhaps he's using inception, I don't know. What I do know is that by the end of the evening, I found out that he'd 'been asked' by the PTA members to put together the Summer Festival's cake walk—and Kurt couldn't have been more thrilled. His plans were elaborate, to say the least, and I've been dropping not-so-subtle hints ever since that he might want to tone it down a little.

“Honey, are you sure you want them all to be on fluted pedestals? I'm just thinking that the combination of all pastel colors and having everything at different eye levels might make it look a little like a French patisserie. Oh, that's what you were going for? Okay. Well, how about something different in terms of music? I know, I know—everyone loves Oklahoma! but really, Kurt... If I'm being totally honest, this is going to be the gayest cake walk ever.”

But of course, my visionary husband would not be dissuaded, and it was indeed the gayest cake walk ever. The second I walked in with the kids, the look on their faces was a picture—a mixture of absolute horror, and beet-red chagrin. And the fact that they’re only ten years old should give you some indication of exactly how far Kurt went with it. Oliver immediately wrenched away from me to go play with his group of friends, and Audrey soon followed suit. This posed a problem for two reasons: one, I was left on my own, and two, I was left on my own. I was at the mercy of my husband, whom I had spotted berating some poor soul who looked to be helping with the sound equipment. Kurt noticed me, of course, and waved me over with an exasperated look.

It wasn’t any use. There was no way I could get out of it. I spend most of my time nowadays in the recording studio working with state-of-the-art technology—how could I possibly escape when all I was faced with was essentially a school PA system? Still, I thought about it. That is, until I saw the pleading look in Kurt’s eyes—huh. Maybe that’s how he does it—and I went to do my civic husbandly duty.

When the cake walk was over (a long, long time later), we left the music playing and went to find the twins, who had only come to us once, asking for more money to spend on the carnival games. They’d shuffled and fidgeted and looked anywhere but at the two of us before speeding off once again, and we found them hidden away at the center of a large group of friends, all splitting their attentions between the duck pond and whack-a-mole (the classics never die).

“Hep! Twist! Time to go,” I called to them, and they separated from the group with miserable faces, grumbling to each other in Twinglish. This continued all the way home, and Kurt rounded on them as soon as we set foot inside.

“Alright, you two. Out with it. What’s the problem?” he demanded, eyes flicking back and forth between them. When Oliver turned to Audrey, Kurt warned him, “no Twinglish. Speak to me.”

“Why do you guys have to be so embarrassing?” Oliver burst out, and there it was. Kurt took a deep breath, and then crouched in front of our son, who had his eyes glued to the floor.

“Were the other kids laughing at you?” he asked, quietly.

“No,” Oliver replied, and shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. Audrey took his hand, and it was hard, for a second, to stay focused on the point. “Not at me.”

“They were laughing at us,” I supplied.

“Well, mostly Papa. But yeah. Especially when you danced when the cake walk was done.”

“And you feel bad because you don’t want them to laugh at us,” Kurt said, and Oliver nodded. “Twist, that’s what we’re here for. To give you two funny stories to tell. It’s only fair, when we’ve got so many about you two.”

“Like what?” Audrey cried out. Kurt stood up, and we exchanged a significant glance.

“Oh, no,” I said. “We’re hanging onto those for special occasions. Graduation, prom, weddings…”

“Daaaaad…”

So there you have it, readers. Embarrassing way before our time. But you know what? This is one parent who is more than happy to be an embarrassment. In fact, maybe I’ll drag Kurt down to the basement with me and dig out the footage of our old high school glee club performances. After all, if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

*

Life During Fatherhood: So Long, Farewell!
Posted by Kurt on Wednesday 30 June 2038 at 12:22PM ICT

Sawadee-krup from Koh Samui, Thailand! This entry is brought to you by one very tired (but still fabulous at all times) Kurt Hummel-Anderson, and I'm currently sitting in a departures lounge at Samui International Airport, waiting for our flight back to Bangkok (the first of three flights spanning almost a day's worth of traveling). There's a cool morning breeze flowing through the most beautiful airport in the world, and Blaine, Audrey and Oliver are curled up on the plush couches taking a nap while I sip my coffee and catch up on some emails. Today is the last day of our two-week vacation to Thailand (the ardent fans among you will remember that Blaine is on his 'Greatest Hits' tour right now—something that still makes us both laugh somewhat disbelievingly; it seems like the last 25 years of our lives have only been a week, at most) and we're heading home for his final show, at Madison Square Garden.

Our vacation has been more than welcome, and a fantastic start to the summer. Of course, there have been the usual pre-teenage grumbles ("Papa, how much further is it to the baggage claim? We must have been walking for miles already." "Dad, we don't need a babysitter while you and Papa go out for dinner. We're twelve." "But Papa, I don't wanna ride the elephant on my own.") but we've all had a wonderful time soaking up the sun and culture, splitting our time between the hotel pool and seeing the sights—particular hits with the kids were the Mummified Monk (Oliver couldn't get over the fact that he's wearing sunglasses) and the Big Buddha, where Audrey rang the large bells in Buddhist tradition. Blaine was glad of some family downtime, after many months spent away from home. Of course, the highlight for him was Napasai's sandcastle restaurant on Ban Tai beach--"they carved it out of the sand, Kurt!"—but we did get a few opportunities to reconnect after missing each other for so long.

This brings me to the main point of this post. When you're single, you make decisions based almost solely on yourself and your surroundings. Your life, your situation, and ultimately what is best for you and those around you in the moment. Having a family dramatically shifts your priorities, and making decisions is always a shared endeavor.

It was here, after much discussion, that we made the decision to tell the twins about their biological mother. K has remained a huge part of their lives, and while they were shocked (to say the least), they took the news as well as could be expected. There were questions, of course, many questions, which we answered as honestly as we could. When they seemed to have all the answers they wanted (and, I hope, needed), they were sleepy and quiet, and we tucked them into their beds with quiet promises of our unconditional love.

Blaine and I let ourselves out onto the balcony and stood together for a moment, his arms around my waist as we simply breathed in, the air faintly laced with hints of jasmine, lemongrass, and Marc Jacobs' Rain. And we talked. We talked for hours. It was as if having that one conversation with the twins just lifted a weight we'd both been shouldering for what seemed an immeasurably long stretch of time. We reminisced about high school and college, relived nights we hadn't thought of in years, retraced our footsteps all the way to right before we became fathers.

Most of all, we talked about this blog. At some point, Blaine dragged out his laptop and we went searching back through our entries, right back to almost the very beginning when it seemed like there was no end in sight and we would be terrible parents anyway, so why were we even bothering? Why were we putting ourselves through this? There is a small number of you, not counting our friends and family from before this blog's conception (forgive the pun), that have been with us from the start, and don't think I haven't noticed that you all seem to have taken to reminding us of how far we've come. On any given day, it's easy to write off comments like that. You get so caught up in the routine of daily life that it's almost too easy to forget that there was a time B.C. (Before Children). But there was. Those early entries hurt my heart to read, and to think back on. My life has been enriched beyond belief by my children, and I couldn't help but look at Blaine and say, “look how far we've come”.

That night on the balcony, we decided that our time on this blog was coming to a close. We've been writing here and sharing our life with you all for nearly fifteen years, and as we speed toward this next phase of our lives (also known as the five years we will spend dealing with a pair of moody teenagers), we both feel that it's time to take a step back and continue the rest of the time we have left with our kids before they fly the nest in private. So it is as I sit here in Koh Samui, with some very strong Thai coffee keeping my typing speed above 90 words per minute, that I am writing to bid you all a very fond farewell. You have been a thoroughly wonderful audience, and Blaine and I cannot thank you enough for all of your support. Your sage wisdom and kind advice, given so freely and without condition. Above all, the boundless love that kept us going through those years B.C. There were times that we honestly felt like giving up, like this wasn't something that was meant for us. But now, as I look at Audrey and Oliver sleeping, and the peaceful smile on my husband's face as he dozes through the quiet bustle around us... I can say that, from the very bottom of my heart, this is something that was always meant for us. And to those of you who helped us see that at the start, and to those of you who continued to help us see that through the highs and lows, I will be forever grateful. Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you.

I've never been good with saying goodbye. It's not something I really know how to do, nor have ever had any desire to do. This is the man who, as a boy of seventeen, promised his boyfriend, “I'm never saying goodbye to you”, and made good on that promise. So, instead, I will take my cues from one of my favorite musicals of all time:

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight.

*

Saturday 27 August, 2044

“I still can't believe you've made me put pictures of my first cake walk in there,” Kurt muttered, shaking his head as he flipped to the next blank page and began rooting through his drawer of backing paper once more.

“Come on, why not? It was your greatest triumph. Those PTA moms were beside themselves,” Blaine replied, his smile easy and open, even as Kurt gazed at him sardonically.

“My greatest triumph?” At Blaine's emphatic nod, Kurt continued, “so... Not becoming a world-famous designer, not raising two beautiful kids, not beating a serious blood disorder? You're really calling my greatest triumph a cake walk?”

“In a word, yes.”

“Sometimes, Blaine, the way your mind works really concerns me.”