"Was I this cute as a baby?"

Daddy stops making silly faces at Katie and smiles his big smile at me. "Yeah, Matty, you were."

I'm named after Daddy's daddy, Matteo Micelli. Grandpa died before I was born but everyone says I look like him. He drove a garbage truck, which is awesome. I would like to drive a fire truck someday. Daddy is a volunteer fireman, one of the cool things he does, like coach my peewee baseball team. I have the best daddy in the neighborhood. He is smart, funny, nice, strong, brave, and everything. When I told Mommy that, she said, "You left out handsome."

Mommy is all those things, too. Well, pretty instead of handsome. She has her own business, making commercials. Daddy is a teacher at my school. I can't wait till he's my teacher, but Jonathan says it was embarrassing sometimes.

Jonathan is my big brother. He's 16 and can drive a car. He knows all about science and money. He would babysit me and Katie tonight but he has a date, which doesn't happen very often. (Girls think he's a geek, but I think he's cool. My whole family is cool, in different ways.)

"Hey, Kiddo, ready to party?"

Yea, Sam is here! Sam is my big sister. She doesn't live at home anymore. She lives with her boyfriend. Daddy wasn't happy about that at first. He didn't even want her to move out to the dorms, which are like apartments for college people. But he got used to it and then she said it was too noisy for her to study. Daddy wanted her to move back home, but Mommy was pregnant by then and it would've meant that Jonathan and I would have to share a room when Katie was born.

We didn't know she would be Katie, named after Mommy's middle name Katherine, but Daddy sometimes calls her Katie Face. We just knew she would be a baby. They didn't even know yet that she was going to be a girl. They found out later.

Anyway, Sam moved in with some nice people in a house, other college students. It was a girl and a guy, and Daddy didn't like the idea of that until he found out that the girl and the guy were engaged. But then the girl broke up with the guy, and so Sam and the guy were living alone, which Mrs. Rossini says is a sin. And Sam's finance got mad and punched the guy, so Sam broke up with him, which Daddy was happy about because he said Sam was too young to be engaged, even though she was 18 and all grown up.

Anyway, Sam fell in love with that guy she lived with, and he's Benjamin and he's cool, too. He's funny. Daddy is used to him now. They're not engaged because they don't want to rush into anything but Grandma hopes they'll get married someday because she likes to see people get together and stay together. That's why she's a marriage counselor.

Grandma is I'm not sure how old but she is lots of fun. She doesn't babysit much because she dates more than Jonathan, but when she does, she lets me eat as much ice cream as I want.

Sam picks me up now and gives me a piggy-back ride, even though I'm getting kind of big. I'm 7 1/2. I was born on September 20, 1984. I was supposed to be a Libra but instead I'm a Virgo. I like to practice reading with the horoscopes and the comics in the newspaper. Daddy and I both like Blondie best.

Daddy is a Taurus, which means he's stubborn but very nice. Mommy is a Gemini, which means that she has different sides to her personality. I guess they're "compatible" because they kiss more than any other parents in the neighborhood. And they laugh together a lot and have all kinds of special secrets, like that they got married when they were drunk in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I don't think Sam and Jonathan know that. They were little when it happened, younger than me I mean, but not as little as Katie. I'm not supposed to know either, but I overheard Mommy and Daddy talking about it right before my birthday last year, when I was snooping around to find out what they got me.

"Tony, did you ever think when we woke up together that morning, almost thirteen years ago, that it would lead to all this?"

"Angie, with the hangover I had, all I could think about at first was where I'd left my aspirin."

"Oh, you!"

"Angela, I am very glad we got married then. But, no, I wouldn't have predicted thirteen years of happiness, four wonderful kids."

"Anyone home?"
"And an ever-present mother-in-law."

I went upstairs before they caught me. They always told me that they got married on Thanksgiving, in Brooklyn. Sam remembers it but Jonathan doesn't. I talked to Katie about what I heard, since she's just a baby and I knew she could keep a secret. She turns one tomorrow, April 25, 1992. That's Taurus, like Daddy. She is pretty stubborn but she's too little to be nice yet. She likes to pull our hair and put our fingers in her mouth, but she doesn't do it to be mean. She just doesn't know any better.

Daddy and Mommy are going out tonight because it's Friday, their date night. Not all married people still date, but they do. They are going dancing, because they love to dance and because Mommy has lost all her pregnancy fat now.

Mommy comes downstairs in a pretty dark blue dress with no sleeves and a puffy skirt with sparkles all over. Her hair is piled on top of her head. I can tell by the way Daddy looks at her that he still knows she's beautiful. He's wearing a tucks, with an apron over it because sometimes Katie is messy. Sam stops giving me a piggy-back ride and takes Katie from Daddy.

"Have fun, you two."

Jonathan comes in from the kitchen. "Remember, Mom, you've got a curfew."

She shakes her head. "So do you, Young Man."

"Aah, he'll be back by 9 as usual."
"Thanks, Sam. Not all of us can get engaged twice by the age of 20."

"WHAT?" Daddy shouts.

"Thanks, Jonathan. I owe you," Sam says like she owes him a punch.

Mommy seems less surprised. She hugs me and then kisses Katie on the forehead, trying to keep Katie from pulling Mommy's hair down. "Come on, Tony, we have reservations for 7."

"But, Sam is—"
"I doubt she and Benjamin will elope before we come home. Otherwise, she'll have to find us another sitter."

Daddy looks like he wants to argue, but he sighs, takes off the apron, and kisses all of us goodbye, except Jonathan, who he musses up the hair of. As he and Mommy go out the front door, I hear him say, "You always get your way in the end, don't you, Boss?" But he doesn't sound like he's complaining.

THE END FOR GOOD