IELEV8

When we first met, Mark always said he wanted five kids. Five boys, actually. “A starting five for a basketball team,” he’d say. But, after we had Lucia, that all changed. He realized how much work little ones could be and he’d joke, “Maybe two is enough!” I’d remind him of his dream team ambitions and he’d say, “Okay, let’s have as many as we can afford and then have one more…” I guess we were definitely in agreement that we wanted a big family… and when I was pregnant with Cecilia, Mark told me he was hoping for a girl. I was shocked that somewhere along the way his dream of raising an NBA starting line-up transformed into a simple fondness for just being dad to one little hoopster and two little princesses. Having a daughter changed Mark. He was certainly that dad that played basketball in the driveway and football in the backyard with his son for hours on end. But he was also that dad that I would occasionally find baking cookies and painting toenails simply because Lucia asked him to in that sweet little voice of hers. And man, the way he looked at our girls…there was nothing else like it.