I walk through the door, excited to spoil my girls. As I close the door, my daughter comes running at me and wraps her arms around my neck as I lean down. In her typical way, Olivia talks endlessly, filling me in on every aspect of her day, which I always love. She takes my hand and leads me into the kitchen where my beautiful wife is by the oven cooking dinner. Now, I might have taken cooking lessons in the past and improved over time, but her food has always been better.
“Good evening.” I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist. I bury my face in her beautiful smelling hair and inhale her deeply. That scent is so comforting, I love coming home to it every day. “And what have I done to deserve you cooking for me tonight, beautiful? I wasn’t expecting it.”
She spins around to kiss me. “You don’t always have to do anything to deserve it. Sometimes, you get treats just for being you…” Which is the moment I present her with her gift, and I pass Olivia hers as well. “See what I mean? You are amazing.” She pauses to kiss me some more. “But tonight is special.”
Immediately I panic, my mind starts spinning at a million miles an hour. What am I forgetting? This isn’t an anniversary or anything like that. I would remember that. So, has something happened at her work? I always listen to her when she talks, so I don’t know what I might have missed …
“You don’t need to look so worried,” she chuckles. “Don’t worry, you didn’t know it was going to be special.”
“Oh.” I take a seat and Olivia instantly jumps up on to my lap. I don’t know if I like this or not…
“Olivia?” Chloe talks to our daughter, ignoring all of my questions. “Do you want to take that sweater off? You’re looking a bit hot.” Our daughter stubbornly shakes her head. “I think you might want to take it off, remember?”
I knot my eyebrows together and try to figure out what’s happening.
“Come on, Olivia, take your sweater off.” Chloe has her teeth gritted together now. “For Mommy, please?”
Olivia exaggeratedly rolls her eyes and slides off my lap. She isn’t great at keeping her emotions hidden, she hasn’t ever been, but this is over the top even for her. I can’t stop from chuckling to myself…
Only the laughter fades away the moment I see it. Now I understand why Chloe has been trying to get Olivia to play along with what she wants. The words on Olivia’s tee shirt stun me.
“You’re… you’re going to be a big sister?” I stammer out. “Is this for real?”
I catch Chloe’s wet eyes and see her nodding with tears in her eyes. We’ve been wanting to expand our family, to give Olivia a baby brother or sister to play with, especially since we were both only children, but it’s been months and I was starting to worry that it wasn’t going to happen. Chloe fell pregnant with Olivia right away, so I was worried… but it seems that all my panic was for nothing because she’s pregnant.
“Oh my God! This is amazing.”
I race across the room, over to my wife and I hold her tight with tears of joy rolling down my face. In moments, Olivia is clinging on to my leg, connecting all three of us, all four of us now, in the best way possible.
Once upon a time, this life was so out of reach that I couldn’t have even imagined it, but now I have it. And it gets better every single day. I have the wife that I have always wanted, a beautiful daughter who is wild, crazy, loud, fun, and now I have another child on the way. It truly is a miracle.
“I love you, Chloe Landon.” I love calling her that.
“Well, I love you too. I feel like the luckiest woman alive to have you two and now another baby on the way.”
She might think that she’s lucky, but it will always be me who struck gold. And I intend to keep her happy for the rest of my life …