The last few months have gone incredibly quickly. Things seem to be happening at a pace so rapid that I can’t even comprehend them. Everything has changed, and it’s all changed for the better.

Normally in the winter I feel depressed, at least mildly. The cold weather and the lack of sun starts to get to me and there’s nothing I can do about it. But this winter was different, completely different. I felt constantly filled with a warm joy that just wouldn’t leave me. And that joy came from Will and Shane.

Having Shane in my life is incredible. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, by far. There’s simply no comparison. Well, maybe Will is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ll simply say, I guess, that the two of them are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s sort of a chicken and the egg situation, where I’m not sure which came first. You know what I mean.

After a month of getting engaged, Will and I moved in with Shane, to the house that he already has.

There was a bit of cleaning up to do to make it livable. Or at least up to a woman’s standards. It was a nice place, but it was set up like some kind of bachelor pad. Men just don’t seem to have that homemaking instinct.

For the first couple weeks, Shane’s brother, Jack, was staying there too. Eventually, though, he moved out. He had just recently gotten a job as a delivery driver for one of the big shipping companies. It’s a good job, with a pretty high hourly pay, especially considering that Jack had been in and out of prison. It was kind of interesting having him there, and Will seemed to like him a lot, but in the end I was glad when he moved out and the three of us had the house just to ourselves.

Some people say you shouldn’t move in together before getting married. But I’m finding that that’s less and less a popular opinion. Now a lot of people say you should move in before getting married. Me? I don’t really know what’s best. I figure that’s for everyone to decide on their own. In our case, I was running out of money. But that wasn’t the real reason. If I’d wanted to, I could have stayed living on my own, just me and Will. The real thing was that it just seemed natural. Shane had been spending almost every night at my apartment, and it just felt better to live together. After all, we already had a son together, so why not live together, as one happy little family?

I’m going back to school. Finally, I get to study my passion. I’m going to be enrolled in a PhD program for physical therapy next fall. It’s good that I’m going to finally get to go, because it turns out that I might actually have some real talent for it. Shane’s shoulder has gotten better. So my diagnosis was correct, about the way his shoulder was moving in its socket. It turns out that all the sports doctors and everyone else he’d gone to completely dropped the ball on that. A permanently injured shoulder could have completely destroyed his career.

The wedding is scheduled for this spring, the first day of April, when we hope against hope that the sun will be shining down on us and the weather will be pleasant and warm. Part of me wanted to just rush down to the courthouse and get married as soon as possible, but we talked about it, and in the end we agreed that it would be a lot more special if we waited a few months and planned a proper wedding.

It’s so nice to be able to be a stay at home mom for once. I’m going to enjoy it while I can, since school next year will take up a lot of my time. I get to spend a lot more time with Will, and it’s fun to see him growing daily, getting smarter and learning more things. He’s getting better at walking, talking, and just about everything.

Shane spends as much time with Will as he can. He’s trying to make up for lost time. I think it was kind of a shock to him to suddenly become a father. He had to deal with it on his own terms, and by the time he had decided what he wanted to do, that he wanted to propose to me and marry me, he was completely ready to be a dad. But he still had a lot to learn. Unlike me, he hadn’t seen Will grow from an infant into the kid he is now.

I couldn’t be more proud of Shane and the effort he’s making. Not only does he spend time with Will, and the three of us, but he spends a lot of his free time reading up on child development. He wants to understand everything and be the best possible dad that he can be. I’m more than impressed.

Shane went on to do very well in the football season. Thankfully, football season is over, and he won’t have to do any football related things during the time leading up to the wedding.