I’m glad that we were together from 1982 until 1993 before we finally had the son we had been talking about even our our very first date, when Greg and I drove up next to Yellowstone Park’s East Gate to listen to my friend play the piano at Pahaska TeePee.
Once we had fist one son, then in 18 days after his first birthday, two boys, life changed focus. It helped that we had already learned to adjust to living together, and liking each other as friends because there were a lot of days we were on the run in several different directions at once. We liked the adventure of following their interests, from pirates and fishing to cello and violin, to horse riding or renting quads at the beach. We camped, and rented cabins or yurts in Oregon State parks. Once Greg took the boys to Wyoming and South Dakota for his Dad’s 70th birthday while I was working. Several times I worked summer school, and then he worked sumner Band Camp and paint crew while the other stayed home. He took one year off and arranged field trips with the neighbor kids to plywood mills and aquariums and did big batches of blackberry pies in assembly line fashion, or borrowed a cider press and harvested our apples. They made one funny, scary movie called “moon monsters”
I encouraged messes, loving paint and science experiments and digging in the sand and mud. I loved that the spring horse I was given for my first Christmas was resurrected to gallop once more.
