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Actually, it’s Krystal who’s done it all really. We kept everything I’d set up running because it wasn’t broken so it needed no fixing.
It pays the bills and gives us the life I want for her and our family, leaving plenty of room to expand if we want.
And Krystal wanted some input. Not content to just be barefoot and pregnant for the rest of her days, she ordered me to put her to work, not long after little Ellie came into the world either.
“If you really want to work. Come up with something you love doing that you can charge people for, and then we’ll talk,” I told her.
“But I won’t have you doing some BS job or taking orders from me or anyone else, no way. Come up with what you want to do and the business will back it,” I said.
And not a day goes by when I don’t marvel at her, or her work since that day not so very long ago.
With Ellie on her hip most days, and with another one almost fully cooked inside her, my darling wife runs as well as works at Baby-Booth. The countries newest and fastest growing baby photo franchise.
I kind of, maybe by accident left an article in a financial magazine one morning, the one showing a national photography chain about to go under, desperate for a buyer when she had the idea.
Something she loves and something she’s good at. Plus, something she could charge money for.
And who doesn’t love or need high-quality baby photos?
We ran it past accounting, her dad, Jack. His say is as important as any because he’s a third partner.
He crunched the numbers and honestly? He said the odds were stacked against it, but if it made Krystal happy, he’d forfeit his share of everything if it went belly up.
Well, we all learned something, and fast.
My wife isn’t just a pretty face, and nor is our baby girl Ellie.
Ellie’s become the face of Baby Booth, and a little bit of a celebrity with TV ads and newsprint, that sort of thing.
Having a new mom with a baby of her own taking your baby photos? It’s taken off like nothing else could, with the original company wanting their business back soon after.
Sorry, not for sale.
And although Baby Booth is open for anyone to get involved, it encourages recent moms and mom’s-to-be to get started in business for themselves, with Krystal personally overseeing a franchise group in the thousands after just a few months.
Jack’s eaten humble pie and suggested going public with the company. Krystal made a face and Ellie blew a raspberry then needed changing, so that was the end of that corporate meeting.
I find myself offering to help when I think Krystal needs it, glad to do anything when she asks. And I always remind her to take it easy, not to overwork herself or to take on too much.
“You said to do what you love, right?” she away says, and I agree.
“That’s what I’m doing, Blake and it doesn’t even feel like work. I get to have you and Ellie, even my dad around most of the time. It’s like hanging out with family, not work,” she tells me with confidence.
“I’m proud of you, Krystal. I really am,” I tell her, not surprised when she waves it off but I can see the color in her cheeks.
That quiet satisfaction an artist has when they see their work coming to life. That glow a mother gets when she sees her children growing up.
The look in her eyes when she tells me she loves me, and the way her look shifts when I tell her I love her more.
Not a day goes by when I don’t give thanks for Nate Macy either.
If he’d gotten straight off his flight, and if Krystal had been running on schedule to pick him up, we might never have met.
A thought I can’t hold in my mind because it seems impossible now to even live and breathe without her, without our babies, and without our family.
“Just make sure I don’t get so wrapped up in this I forget about us,” she reminds me one night.
Ellie fast asleep in her crib by our own bed and me resting my head gently on baby number two inside her belly.
I can hear both heartbeats, mommy, and baby. It never ceases to amaze me, the whole miracle of life.
“This is us though,” I tell her, remembering what she said about doing what she loves never being work.
“Yes,” she sighs. “I just never want to lose sight of us,” she says, emphasizing the word.
Widening her eyes as she traces her hand across my cheek as I look up at her.
She takes my hand and cups it to her chest.
“Don’t get tired of this,” she says with a pleading tone in her voice, making me prop myself up on one elbow, our eyes level with each other.
