A few hours ago, I left Chicago for the third time. Unlike any other vacation I go on, I become something while in Chicago that I am not, even in my own hometown, and something that I never thought I would be in my life, because I don't want to be one, but something that for some reason comes so natural to me every time I visit Dan and Kandice in Chicago, a parent.

I am the Godfather of Coltraine Ellis Lins, son of Dan and Kandice Lins. But they have two other kids, Mason and Alexis Cruz, who are Kandice's kids from a previous marriage. Despite the fact that those two children, who are thirteen [Alexis] and nine [Mason], have no tie to me whatsoever except for my friendship with Dan and Kandice, I treat those kids as if they were my own, this week even more than ever before.

While this may be my third trip to Chicago, it is the longest I have ever stayed here. The first time, I stayed for a weekend to celebrate Cole's Baptism, and the second time, I stayed for a weekend to enjoy the company of those who attended first South Park Illinois, or SPIL. This time, I stayed for seven days and seven nights, to not only enjoy this year's SPIL guests, but to spend some much needed quality time with my extended family.

As the days of this last week went on, I got more comfortable, and more authoritative with Alexis, Mason and Cole. At one point, we were at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and I was pushing Coltraine in his stroller while Alexis walked beside me, and Mason ran ahead. As he left my site, I screamed, "Mason! Don't run ahead!" while pushing a stroller with a teenager beside me. If I had the ability to travel ahead in time to that exact moment from any point in my past, I probably would have freaked out and thought there is no way Paul Wein would be pushing one baby while yelling at another, with a third child at his side.

No way.

But I did this week, and I didn't mind one bit.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no desire to have children of my own, I just love those three kids so much that I feel as if I fathered them myself. Without getting the job as Moderator of South Park Digest, I never would have met Dan and Kandice, much less help to "raise" their kids. But when I am at their house, I acquire a sense of parental responsibility that I do not even encounter when I am at my niece and nephew's house.

I can't put my finger on what it is that transforms me into a parent around those three kids, but it is certainly fact. In the last week, I have had a "parent/teacher" conference with Mason's teacher, sent Alexis to the store as my mom did to get some things we needed, and yes, yet again, changed Cole's diaper. To save my own life back home, I wouldn't do such things. But for some reason, when I am in Chicago with those three kids, it just seems right.

And with fifteen minutes until we land at JFK, I miss them already...

...but still don't want any of my own.