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Thank God, it was only for a couple of weeks this time around.
I thought that being away from my woman while on tour with the boys would get easier with time. That we would both grow used to it and find ways to adapt and cope with being separated.
Man, was I wrong!
If anything, it's gotten worse, and when I'm away, I miss every little thing about our life together, and then, of course, there are our babies to think of, worry over and miss like crazy…
I want to be there for my family in every moment, and I hate being away, but my music calls to me still.
I could never give it up. I would be miserable without it.
I’ve got to find a way to balance things, though, maybe only tour during the summer or something.
Mia’s fondest professional dream came true and she’s been working for the FBI as a criminal profiler and facial expressions analyst part-time for about two years now. Coincidentally, she started just when her brother decided that he would finally leave the bureau to pursue his own aspirations. Though, of course, he only did that after working alongside his sister for an additional few months to make sure she would find her place in the team without a hitch. Theydidoffer her a full-time position as soon as my wife walked through the door, but Mia didn’t want for her career to take too much of her time away from our kids, so she never took them up on it.
Because of this arrangement and the possibility of doing her work remotely as often as she needs, she’s been able to accompany the guys and me on tour up until now. So we got lucky there.
Soon the kids will have too much going on in their lives to come along, though, and things will have to change.
Especially during the school year, and there’s no way I can be away from my wife and our babies for that long, and the guys, too, are starting to have that kind of issue with their own significant others and families.
So, I’m guessing it’s going to be back to the drawing board for all of us soon.
We just came back from our last concert of the season in New York City. The venue was sold-out five minutes after the link went live on our website, and our team got so many messages from our fans that had missed out that we had to add another date and make it a double event.
Mia and the kids were with us up until Chicago, just like the rest of mine and the guys’ extended family, but then our baby girl, Ruby, got a fever, and we didn’t want to take her on the jet and change her environment too suddenly.
I almost saidfuck it all, and stayed behind with them, but my wife insisted I was overreacting, that it was just a little cold and she and her portion of the army of nannies that accompany us while we tour were more than equipped to care for my little girl.
So my wife and the kids remained in Illinois while we went on to play in Boston.
Getting my ass to leave my two-year-old angel behind when she was sick and needed her daddy to hold her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, coming only second to keeping myself from murdering every doctor in sight while my beloved wife went in labor with our oldest girl, Raven and then again with Ruby herself.
I get just a tad bit unhinged when my woman’s or my babies’ wellbeing is threatened.
Music is still in every fiber of my being, but my wife and kids fucking own my ass. Hence the two weeks of hell I’ve just gone through.
Originally, my little family was meant to catch up with us after Boston and finish the last leg of the tour, but Mia and I decided it was wiser for her to go back home early when Ruby’s cold turned out to be actually flu, and she passed it on to her brother and sister.
I see the little eager faces of my children in my mind’s eye and I grin.
Little Raven just turned five. She’s the picture of her mommy and a total tomboy. She stole my heart with her first breath and almost stopped it quite a few times as soon as she learned to walk with her little criminal ass, always getting into dangerous stuff. My newly acquired salt-and-pepper do is totally her doing. She gave me grays before I turned forty.
She’s very musical. Surprisingly knowledgeable about rock bands —probably thanks to her uncles sneaking her stuff she’s way too young to listen to behind my back while I vainly try to keep her little ass on classical music and old composers. The voice on that little girl is out of this world. I might be biased ‘cause she’s mine, but then again, perfect pitch here, so no.
I don’t know what she’s going to do with her life when she’s an adult, but I can tell you that if it’s going to involve singing, she’s going to put me to shame.
Ryan, her older brother, is only six months younger than her. We adopted him when he was a baby. And whatever her mother hadn’t taught me already about love at first sight, he did.
He’s blessed with such a joyful attitude about him. He’s always smiling and laughing. Our little ray of sunshine on two legs.
At a glance, just like it happened with my little beauty, I could see that he already held a piece of my heart in his own and my woman felt the same. Looking at his little face, it was love at first sight for the both of us all over again. I never quite figured out that old nature vs. nurture debate, but he's so much our own he even kinda looks like his sisters as crazy as it may sound.
At four, he is the virtuoso of the family.
He was still in diapers and barely crawling around the first time he strummed on Daddy’s bass.
He’s so protective of his mommy, sisters, and all his cousins –even the ones that are older than him— that my wife swears up and down he’s a carbon copy of me, different genetic makeup notwithstanding.
