Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
I blatantly stared at the circus my house had become.
“You know what I think when I see this insanity?” Zoe asked, coming up beside me with our toddler on her hip.
“That you’re good with just one?” I lifted our daughter into my arms through all hundred layers of her fluffy outerwear and pressed a kiss to her nose, which was just about the only exposed part of her.
“So good.” Zoe nodded, her eyes slightly wide at the spectacle before us. “So, so, so good.”
“You really don’t want another one?” I teased. Honestly, as often as I got my hands on her, I was shocked we didn’t have four already.
“Ha. Very funny.” She shot me a healthy dose of side-eye.
“What do you think, Mel? You want to be an only child?” I reached under my daughter’s scarf and tickled her neck.
She laughed, and those emerald-green eyes melted me into a puddle of goo, just like always. “Sled!” The demand was as clear as a two-year-old could make it.
“You sure? It’s awfully cold out there.”
“Sled!” She stared me down, just like her mother.
“Okay, okay,” I agreed as the front door opened.
“We’re here!” Naomi called out, her boots heavy on the floor. “The roads are absolute crap.”
“Hey, we made it,” Jeremiah argued as they came around the corner with Levi.
“Because I drove,” Naomi muttered.
“Levi!” Mel tried to reach out, but she had classic snowsuit issues.
“Hey, Melody!” Levi grinned and took her straight out of my arms like the baby thief he was. “I’ve got her, Uncle Nix. Want to go sledding?”
“Sled!”
“Do you want the pink one or the green one this time?” he asked as he walked off toward the garage, where our sled supply rivaled only the nearest ski resort.
“Geen!”
“You two finish getting dressed,” Naomi ordered, following the kids into the garage.
I turned to my wife and yanked her fully into the kitchen, out of eyesight, and kissed her hard and deep. “We could get undressed instead.”
“I could get behind that plan,” she said with a smile, wrapping her arms around my neck.
Four years of marriage and I still couldn’t get enough of her. She wasn’t an addiction, not in the way I used to think—she was a necessity, like water or oxygen. My need for her was constant and only surpassed by my love for her.
“Time to go!” Vivi announced.
“Guess we’ll have to wait until later.” Zoe pressed another kiss to my mouth, then slid out of my arms in search of her boots.
I grabbed the rest of my things and followed my family into the obnoxiously cold day, taking Mel from Levi when the snow came up to his knees at the edge of the driveway.
There was nothing more precious in this world than the woman beside me and the little girl she’d given me. Nothing better than having all of us gather here year after year, carving out the time to be together where the crowd was underage and the only schedule we had to keep was naptime.
Some years, our best hits were written at my dining room table.
Other years, the only thing we wrote were grocery lists when the kids ran us out of milk.
As long as we had the week together, we were happy.
I held Zoe’s gloved hand and knew I was the happiest of all.