"You're my favorite person."

“You’re MY favorite person.”

Sully and I were watching a cheesy Netflix show where the teen son proclaimed that his dad was his favorite person. I chuckled aloud, thinking how unrealistic that was. What teenager would ever actually say that?

Sully heard my skepticism and looked at me over his shoulder.

“What? You’re my favorite person.”

Then he returned his attention to the tv like he hadn’t just awarded the parent version of an Oscar to me.

It’s not that I think kids are the magical answer to all of life’s problems. I don’t. In some cases they are the root of all life’s problems!

But there are moments when I am wholly, purely loved by my children. When they don’t care about my gender, my bedhead, what strangers on the Internet say about me— they just love me.

Yes, it’s because I give them ice cream and take them to the park and play their songs in the car. But also, it’s because I’m tired and can’t do everything right now and am real and human with them.

When I decided to move across the country on a quest for “a dog, a car, and a boyfriend,” I was actually searching for someone to like me the best. Not me the only and not me above themselves…. But to be someone’s favorite.

It won’t last forever (the teen years are right around the corner) but if I can be this human’s favorite for just a little while longer, I’ll consider this whole parenting thing a success.