Thursday, June 25, 2009

A Breather

Daddy showed up this evening and whisked little man away to visit his Gram. He left behind a very unhappy big sister who doesn't understand why she gets omitted from these impromptu visits (sorry baby, I don't know why he's separated you, either).

Raising two kids with two fathers is something I never thought I'd do. I mean, I watched Maury in college (and occasionally I catch it these days, too). I am appalled by the ladies on the show who have no earthly idea who fathered their five kids and none of the twenty names they provided tested as "The Baby Daddy." And here I am with two kids and two fathers. Yes, I'm "100 percent" sure who their dads are, but the fact that there is an 's' on that title still bothers me. No doubt some people out in cyberspace are passing judgment as they read this...

I don't put on airs and pretend that I am the ideal Mommy figure, but I am a good mother. I would do anything for my kids. I am the financial force, the emotional backbone, the disciplinarian, and all the holiday gift givers. I have raised a daughter who is intelligent, well-adjusted, polite, and inquisitive without much assistance from her father.

For the last three years, he has merely been a voice on the phone - - one she couldn't understand through a thick Nigerian accent until very recently. That we are not raising her together is not my daughter's doing, nor is it something she is ashamed of, nor should it be a cause of alarm for anyone. Frankly, she is the little girl that she is because of how she has been raised. She is surrounded by a family that adores her. She has never had to see her parents fight because they were forced to be together unhappy or maybe unhappy together. She has never heard either parent voice an ill-word toward each other. And she has never thought to play one parent against the other when she doesn't get her way.

And now she has two siblings - a sister from her father and a brother from her mother. And those siblings lead different lives with different families than her own. In an ideal world, she'd have a richer family with more aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins... but there are knots in our crazily gnarled tree that haven't begun to sprout new growth yet.

Now I titled this post "breather" because I was thinking about how much time and energy my kids are requiring of me as they are now in my total care 24-hours-a-day. We've kept ourselves busy at the library, the bowling alley, the park, the pool, and the house. And though we've stretched the bed time later into the evening, we've still managed to rack up a good 8-hours of sleep time each evening.

With Ya temporarily away from us, I have a few moments to "relax" without being asleep. But Chi is unhappy because she has been left out. Her Nintendo DS is missing. She is sad. And I am wasting time on my blog thinking about this crazy family I've placed her into that is still a work in progress.

1 comment:

Joy Howse said...

I get it. My oldest comes from a past relationship and I get sick and tired of the stares and rude comments from others (his dad was filipino and my husband is as white as they come so he doesn't look like he can come from both of us). Poor guy is starting to hear and understand those comments and it hurts. He hates that his skin is getting super dark from being at the pool because the rest of us are just red and then peel and then back to white. I hate that he has to go through that. Sorry that Chi gets left out of things. And no judgement from me.
Hope you have a great weekend.