Narrowing down the longing

I'm not sure why this occurred to me today, but it did.

Why, just why exactly do I want children?  I'm not the person who looks forward to little bitty shoes, or goo-goos, or whatever else it is that appeals to a lot of people about babies and children.  I'm anticipating a lot of work that's going to piss me off a good portion of the time.

Considering my attitude, and what I'm anticipating parenting to be like, one would think I would avoid it at all costs.

So here's what it is.

I know and love my husband so well, that I can glance at him, see him doing some stupid thing that only he does, like the way he laughs out loud at commercials as if the jokes are actually clever, and I just feel so connected to him.

When I think of my dad and great guy that he is, I don't think about the monumental moments in my life that he was present for.  Or the great things that he's achieved.  I think of his hands.  His hands doing stupid little magic tricks like where you hold your palms together, hold a pencil in your thumbs, and then turn your hands flat still holding the pencil (yes, I know how to do this).  My dad almost always has something stupid in his hands that he's fidgeting with by way of little magic tricks.

These are the details that define a person.  These are the things that need to go into a scrapbook to give an observer an indication of that person as a person.  Graduation pictures say nothing other than that person wore in a weird hat and a robe for an hour.  Weddings are lovely, but they really have nothing to do with your marriage.  When I take my video camera to Thanksgiving dinners and stuff, I'm zooming in on my dads hands from across the room, and I'm leaving the camera running with tape over the red light so no one realizes it's on because maybe I'll catch a family member doing something iconic of that person.

It overwhelms me that I might have the privilege of knowing and loving even more people in this way.  Two more complete human beings that I'm going to know and understand and recognize and adore so much.  That there will be more people in my life who connect me by just absent mindedly twirling their hair in the way that only they do, or walking with a certain posture like only they can.  I get to be privy to that secret language that only people who deeply understand each other can have.

And that's why I have no interest in your children.  I don't know them the way that you do, and I have no right or inclination to know them the way that you do.  But I'm going to be utterly fascinated by mine.  I just can't believe that I'm going to have the privilege of bonding to additional people as tightly or even more so than my husband.