Not long after that, Bachelor #5 took my children and I snowmobiling for an entire day. I wondered at the wisdom of accepting his invitation. I mean, who takes four children, one of them an indescribably busy and fairly demanding four-year-old, to spend an entire day with a man friend? I did.
My four-year-old instantly liked him. He slipped his hand in Bachelor #5′s hand and hardly let go the entire day. Bachelor #5 was so kind to him and patiently rode with him on his snowmobile all day leaving me free to enjoy my other children. It was the first time since my divorce that had happened, that I’d been free to enjoy my older children without worrying about my very busy youngest son!
One by one, throughout the day, my children each came to me on their own to share their opinion of Bachelor #5, despite the fact I hadn’t asked for it. My oldest said, “I really like this guy, mom. He is cool and he is nice. He just seems so familiar. I’m trying to figure out where I’ve met him before.”
My daughter offered, “Mom. He is a nice man. He’s funny. But I’m sure I’ve seen him before, I just can’t remember where.”
My middle son asked, “Mom? Are you going to marry this man?” I replied, “Heavens no! He’s just a nice man who is taking us snowmobiling.” He then observed, “He is really nice, you should marry him.”
The ride home was especially entertaining. While Bachelor #5 and his son rode in one vehicle, Bachelor #5′s friend, who had been our guide through the mountains all day, drove my children and I in another vehicle–and he put the sales pitch on for Bachelor #5 the entire ride home! I thought, “Bachelor #5 would just die if he knew what his friend was doing!” He wasn’t exactly subtle. He told me Bachelor #5 was one of the finest men he had ever known, that a woman would have to be a fool to let him go, he had no idea why Bachelor #5 was still single, and didn’t I love Bachelor #5′s music?
I replied, “He is a good singer.”
The man asked, “No, his CDs. What do you think of those?” I didn’t know anything about any CDs. So the man played them for us all the way home!
And can you believe it? After spending 8 hours with my children and I all day, later that night Bachelor #5 and I went to dinner and a movie, just us, no children. I shared how entertaining it was that his friend was putting in a good word for him all the way home! Bachelor #5 laughed and said, “That is what he did to me all day. He kept asking, ‘Where in the world did you find such a great woman with such a nice family?’”
And I thought all we’d done that day was snowmobile! Who knew Cupid wasn’t a chubby toddler in a diaper but a very nice older man, a grandfather, in snowmobile gear?
When Bachelor #5 took me home that night, he talked about the fun day we’d had and things he wanted to take my children and I to do…five months from then. I laughed and said, “Hold on! That is a LONG way away! You’re going to be totally sick of me AND the Merriman family by then!”
He shook his head no, looked me in the eye and said, “That’s not going to happen. I will never be sick of you.”
And then he took things to a whole new level.
You can’t say I hadn’t been warned–but for some reason, it was still very unexpected.
“There’s nothing you could say that would shock me.” (Laura Prepon) Just certain things you could do, I guess. Consider me shocked!
