“It’s a love unlike any love you’ve ever felt before” is often one of those things people say when you have you first kid.A lot of thoughts run through your head when you are going to be having a kid and I’m no different. Probably the scariest thought is whether or not my love for the new kid will be the same as my love for Talon. Someone told me that it’ll be different when it’s your own kid that you’ve created and I honestly don’t know what it’ll feel like. Do parents who adopt kids and aren’t ever able have one of their own love that child less than parents who are able to? I just don’t think “love amount” is something you can quantify.

Maybe it’s a different kind of love to decide to marry someone with a baby, I don’t know. I think it’s so awesome all of the different ways you can make a family and if you look around and really think about it there are examples all around us. I decided to become a dad the first time I asked Amanda on a date. I knew long before that date that if I ever got the chance to take her out, it would end up being forever. It was really one of the easiest decisions I ever made. I knew I wanted to be with Amanda and I knew I’d eventually love Talon because I love her.

I wondered what that love would be like and 2 years later I can’t imagine a life without him. It’s like a piece of clay. An artist doesn’t love clay, they love the molding that becomes a representation of their input and effort. Teaching Talon to walk and talk, that’s where love came from. The 60th time you toss him a ball and he finally catches it and runs over and gives you a hug, that’s where love comes from.

I think it’s the same with any kind of love. The way you and your significant other do things that mold each other and your way of life to the point where you can’t picture your life without them. That’s where love comes from.

I think it’s something that you build on and different kinds of love take different amounts of time. It’s contagious and it evolves and it changes your heart forever.

I’m not sure what I’ll feel for my new son or daughter, but I’m not really worried about it being a different kind of love. Every kind of love is different. Love of an idea, a wife, a husband, a child, a second child, a pet. They’re all different, but they all have the same ingredients just like clay sculptures. Love is a mixture of effort, feelings, and that secret sauce that no one can really describe. The “you just know” ingredient.

I don’t know if I’m out of the norm here, but Amanda asked me yesterday what my gut feeling was on the baby being a girl or a boy and I honestly don’t know. I’m excited for either but I don’t have a gut feeling either way and if I think I do it switches around from boy to girl to I don’t know.

I’m obviously excited to be the father, but my favorite part right now is that Amanda is the mother. And for right now that’s where the spark of love is at, but I’m excited to get our brand new piece of clay and see what we and the world around us create.