I made it through High School and University pretty unscathed. It was no walk in the park at times but I fared out pretty well. Decent grades, lots of beer, worked full time throughout and the occasional all-nighter. There could be no greater pressure in my life to be balancing all of these pressures as a young adult. The working world combined with parenthood seemed easy compared to that. So why the hell am I so overwhelmed with the amount of homework that I am trying to help my boys with!

Mary and I are good parents. We ask the kids to do their homework and put in the time to study. Often this occurs at the kitchen table, all at the same time. Thankfully, we have very different and balanced post-secondary backgrounds and can tackle these issues deftly. My business and writing background meshes with Mary’s science and math savvy and we are almost all covered. It should be smooth sailing except this stuff seems so much harder than it did when we were less wrinkled and had better eyesight.

I am not ashamed to say that I am baffled by high school math, let alone the math my university aged son is taking. The shameful part is I took all the same stuff 20 years ago and don’t remember jack shit. Mary has to tackle that greek scribble and she has a remarkable ability to recollect it. She takes it as a personal challenge to solve the problem, even if it takes her 45 minutes and Nic’s eyes are rolling back in his head. I will hear a random “AH HA!” from the kitchen and she high fives herself for a job well done. She is a pro.

I get to help tackle the writing assignments. Last night I was lucky enough to spend 4 quality hours with one of my sons researching and structuring a project. Nothing I would rather have wanted to do between the hours of 11pm and 3am than do that! We could pull this out of our asses! He had to get a plan in a hurry last night as we started with selecting a topic, creating a framework and I stepped back as he managed to write, edit and reference the whole damn thing. The juices were flowing and I was young again! In typical flying by the ass of his pants fashion, it was due this morning and I’m sure he proudly ran this across campus to hand it in, thinking he had just pulled of a Christmas miracle. I did my best to not nod off at my office this afternoon as the thrill of the moment had long worn off on my old body.

It’s not going to end anytime soon either. We have more kids coming through the system and I suspect I have not formulated my last term paper nor studied subjects that I have never seen in my life. They talk about career students but I didn’t see this one coming when these kids were born. Be warned, parents of the future.

Marco

Mary and I spent a fantastic 10 days in the Bahamas this month. It was wrapped around my pharmacy conference and it is always a tremendous time spent with friends we like a lot. It was special for another reason, I asked Mary to marry me.

The decision to ask her was an easy one. There are very few women I have ever met know can carry the attention of an entire room without being the complete centre of attention. People want to be around Mary and she makes people comfortable to hang with her. She is one of the most caring and committed women I know and she always, always wants to do the right thing for people she cares about. She has completely captivated my attention for 4 plus years and I am so thankful that she keeps me in line and makes me laugh while she does it.

The process in getting to this point was not as simple. When you are young and poor, you just make it as special as you can. The ring isn’t really as important as the event itself. You need to find a kitschy way to pop the question. As you get older and have a redo, you want to make sure that the details are looked after. The event is not as gimmicky and the ring and the details need to be on par. The challenge starts with trying to find the right ring in a world of diamonds. Let’s be clear, women like bling and not necessarily the bigger the better. Mary and I did a thorough search of  jewellery stores and the inter web before she found one she liked. Then I had to surprise her by buying it and keeping it on the down low. I successfully navigated those waters and the ring looked great when I received it. Next was a plan for launching this at her.

We had this trip planned for the Bahamas and what would be a better place than that. I really had no idea how I would find the moment but was committed that this was the time. We planned for a secured beach walk on one of the first days and this seemed this my chance. I shoved the ring in my shorts and held her hand down the beach. I figured I should take a few pictures of that beautiful morning on the beach and tried to capture some of the moments, for posterior sake. Then the moment arose.

I did what any self respecting dude would do. I dropped to a knee and presented the ring. I found out later that she thought I had hurt me knee, which wouldn’t have been a shock at this advanced age. I think I shocked her that it was happening at that moment. I’m sure she knew it was coming at some point but that day was not on her radar. I was the man!

Now I will tell you that Mary has reminded me several times since that day that she has never really said yes. She did cry and hug me which in man land means yes but in Mary land means some fun at my expense. She has told me a bunch of times since that day that she never really said yes, but I know those eyes. She is happy with me even though she will remind me for years (and every time I piss her off) that she never said yes. I know better, she is going to be my wife.

After the obligatory posting on Facebook and subsequent phone calls to family who are computer illiterate, we are engaged. We started a week long celebration with friends that was a nice treat to a great moment. In our quiet moments, we spent some time thinking about plans for the wedding but we need time to think out that next moment. For now, I have had to adjust my terminology from calling Mary “my wife” to “my Fiancee”. It feels really nice to say that. I’m sure we will have our moments while we plan this event but I plan to enjoy it. I love this woman. Nite babe.

Marco