Still Growing: An Autobiography (22 page)

As young marrieds, we quickly discovered that our personalities are as different as chalk and cheese.

I tend to talk about things in an overly polite, politically correct manner. To Chelsea, this means beating around the bush. She likes to hit things head on. “Say what you mean! Don’t mask it with all this other stuff! Shoot straight.”

At restaurants, I tip a precise amount. Chelsea likes to over-tip. Early in our relationship, she’d slip the waiter a $20 bill on our way out—
after
I’d already tipped him! I was thinking about college funds and she was saying, “Did you ever wait tables? They deserve it.”

If we get chips and salsa, I ask for the mild, sweeter salsa. Chelsea orders the wrath-of-God salsa. She says, “Give me garlic sardines and oysters!” while I say, “Show me the vanilla pudding.”

Chelsea is very passionate, so when she communicated her strong, fierce opinions about something, I used to think she was mad at me. She wasn’t. She’s just an Italian who expresses her opinions more strongly than I was used to.

Married life quickly brought out other differences between us. One day we were cleaning up after dinner. We had used our best china and Chelsea was rinsing a crystal goblet in the sink. She accidentally dropped it, breaking it into tiny, pricey pieces of glass.

I (Mister Economical) couldn’t believe it. “
Honey!
You have to be careful with those. They’re expensive.”

I was shocked. I could not believe he had just scolded me for a
mistake
.

I have no idea what came over me, but I grabbed another crystal glass, looked Kirk right in the eye—and dropped it. It shattered in the cast iron sink.

He stood there and didn’t say a word, but I could see it on his face:
I married a psychopath
.

Growing up in my home, it was never about loving stuff. If you dropped something, nobody worried about it. My dad was fixing a piano leg one day and hadn’t removed all of my mother’s glass heirlooms. The piano collapsed. None of the crystal survived. My mom brushed it off, saying, “Ah, those antiques made me have to dust too much anyway.”

I knew my mom’s heart was breaking. The items had strong sentimental value. But she would never have made my dad feel bad about his butter fingers. She knew it was a mistake.

We laugh about it now. These days if Chelsea breaks something, I’ve learned to say, “Hey, it’s just a thing. Break another one!”

We moved into a condo on the lake in Calabasas, California. During the day, we hiked the Santa Monica Mountains with our dogs, Micah, a monstrous Rhodesian ridgeback, and Rosie, a mutt of unknown heritage.

We hiked to the top to enjoy the sunset, able to see seven other peaks from our lookout. Sometimes we’d return home and make gourmet meals. We both love to cook. Only once did a culinary experiment fail (couscous pizza—never again).

Five years into our marriage, we took a second honeymoon to Italy. One backpack, three weeks, no reservations. It was the most amazing trip—romantic and spontaneous (which freaked my structured husband a bit).

It was everything I could dream of in a honeymoon. We stopped at a train station and said, “We’re looking for a place to stay.” The people were more than helpful and we always ended up in some charming villa or tiny romantic hotel room.

Rome. Milan. Florence. One time we found ourselves staying in the rooftop suite of an elegant hotel, overlooking all of Venice, paying next to nothing at all.

We hiked up the hillsides of Italy and had lunch in hidden farmhouses, eating bruschetta and fish cooked on an open fire. Our favorite honeymoon pastime was stopping in the middle of fragrant olive orchards to enjoy the afternoon in private.

The trip was very romantic, loaded with incredible memories. We laughed a lot, so in love. It was, without a doubt, the best trip of my life.

Once
Growing Pains
ended, we had some free time on our hands. Now sitcom-less, I found myself with time to pursue some of the quirky interests I had never been able to chase during the time-consuming years spent growing up on television. As a result, Chelsea moans whenever someone mentions the word “hobby.”

I’m not a multi-tasker. I pour my entire focus into one thing at a time, which means that every time I had a hobby in those early years, I went overboard. Take Micah, for example. I took him to every dog training class possible. I bought books on dog training. We worked for months. I spent hours and hours every day training him to be a protection dog for Chelsea and the kids. I learned so much, I could’ve opened a dog psycho-therapy business myself.

One of my more odd (but productive) hobbies was becoming a horticulturist. I spent hours memorizing different types of roses and planting them in our yard. I took branches of trees and vines, intertwining them to make arbors and railings. I worked long hours fashioning beautiful gardens in our backyard.

On the environmental front, when I discovered how many gallons of water were wasted through our water filtration system, I decided to
create a gray water system and use that water to irrigate the garden. I had a compost pile and started recycling as much of our trash as possible.

Being a gadget lover, I had a solar oven that, if you pointed it at the right spot in the sky, would heat up to 350 degrees. On hot summer days, I made many a delicious meal in that baby, dishes that would make Mario Batali proud.

Given that my time had freed up, my Grandpa Frank taught me how to golf. We spent many mornings hitting the links together. He gave me a book called
The Modern Fundamentals of Golf—Five Lessons
by Ben Hogan. I studied the book and liked Hogan so much that I bought a set of Hogan Edge clubs. These are forged iron rather than the cast-molded clubs that most people use today. They’re harder to hit—but Ben Hogan used them, so I would too.

Chelsea and I threw a lot of theme parties when we were first married.
Passion, Pasta and Pistols
was one of them. Our guests arrived in costume and in character and remained in character all night. We threw ’60s and ’70s bashes—even ’80s-themed nights. (Though Chelsea would never have dreamed of wearing an “I HEART MIKE SEAVER” shirt back in the day, she proudly wears one now. Apparently, I’m “retrochic,” which is a feisty name for “old school.”)

But the leisurely lifestyle we were living was about to change. A new party was about to start—one that began with a phone call.

“Daddy, it stinks in here.”

“Be there in a minute.”

“Mommy says it’s because there’s dead rats under the house.”

“Mommy might be right, Bella.”

“Daddy . . .”

“Yes, Olivia?”

“Bella takes her chicken on the trampoline and makes it lay on her back and then she goes off and leaves the chicken on the trampoline and the chicken just lays on its back.”

“Dad?”

“What’s up, James?”

“Where’s Whitie, Dad?”

“Whitie got too pecky,” Olivia says, “so we sent her back.”

“Daddy,” Ahna says, snuggling close. “Can we roast the chestnuts yet?”

“Later, after Grandma and Grandpa come.”

“When are we going fishing?”

“In a few minutes, Luke.”

“Are you going to chaperone our space camp trip?”

“Jack, you know I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Daily conversation with my wife and kids . . . this is what I want forever. I have no control over time, but if I could keep my little troop just as they are, I’d be deeply tempted.

Chelsea and I have six—yes,
six
—kids. Saying that to folks always causes a physical reaction—a bodily response to the news. Many cover their mouths in shock, as if they’re keeping their lunch down.
SIX?

Yep . . . a nice, clean, even half-dozen.

Each of these kids was placed in our lives for a specific reason. Chelsea and I believe God masterminded every detail of our family.

Five years into our marriage Chelsea looked at me and said, “Kirk, I think it’s time we started thinking about a family.”

I nodded. “That sounds about right.”

“I’d like to adopt the first two,” she said. “I want to build a family in this incredibly special way.” Chelsea has a huge heart for adoption—she was adopted into a family where she was cherished and treasured. Her parents lavished love on her and she wanted to have the privilege of passing that along. “I want the first two to be adopted so they know they were our first choice.”

“I’m in. Let’s do it,” I said. It’s no small satisfaction when I’m able to help my wife’s dreams come true. Besides, I wanted children and thought that adoption was an exciting option.

Not too long after that discussion, we met with an adoption agency and talked to a social worker.

When she asked what kind of child we wanted, we replied, “We’re open to whatever baby God brings to us.” She was surprised. Most families have very specific things they look for—we didn’t. We wanted to love a child. To be a family. We told the social worker we’d take a hard-to-place baby.