My ex husband (the girls call him daddy) now lives about a five-minute drive from my house. He's in his first year of a biomedical engineering degree. I'll be excited for him if that works out to its most positive end. I don't feel comfortable saying anything else about that right now. But having him living here has been another typical adventure in parenting: awesome for my kids... stressful and frustrating for me. Isn't it all like that?
Daddy is pulling a crazy summer schedule with a full-time block of classes as well as an internship starting in July. He sees the girls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For now, it's working out well enough, but once his internship starts, he's going to be cramming his visits in between that and nap time/his classes and they'll get much less time with him.
I've struggled with his presence in my life because he still makes me feel a little insecure. At the end of the day, I'm always happy to have the life I have, but when I visit him, I question my decisions a little. For example: I would love to have a nice road bike. How nice for him that he was able to save up his discretionary spending to buy himself one while I've had to save up discretionary spending to buy bikes for our kids. In the end, I realize that in order to have the things he has, I would have had to be much more selfish. That is not to say that he is selfish, but that I have more external obligations and would have to be quite selfish to ignore them.
Anyway, whinging aside, I come home and remember that I live in a house I own. I have a fun and interesting vegetable garden and four lovely chickens that I helped fight for the city's right to have. I have four amazing kids who I, exclusively, have always been there for. I have a wonderful partner in parenting who supports and loves me and keeps me interested in life and lots of other things. I have chosen to foster life projects, skills, and progress he has not. Our paths have been different, but I'd rather have my vibrant life full of joy and struggle than a bicycle.
This month, I read How to Raise a Wild Child by Scott D. Sampson (Dr. Scott the paleontologist from Dinosaur Train, now vice president of research and collections and chief curator at our museum of nature and science). I was interested to see what he would have to say because I felt like I had some idea who he was. I don't know him personally, but I know he isn't some shrink with a theory he's tested in a sterile lab. He isn't a parent from a previous generation who wants to tell me how to raise my kids despite how things have changed. He's a parent right now, with a modern life and a modern job and real concerns about our modern world. Papa suggested we read this one.
I wouldn't say it has changed me as a parent. I would describe it as an empowerment... a motivation. We all need to get out more and encourage our kids (and ourselves) to fall in love with nature wherever we can find it.
In addition to visiting our "big back yard" (an incredible local open space) increasingly a lot, we've had many interesting upgrades and activities in our life since I last wrote, in February. In near accurate order:- Grandma Julie visited.
- I started doing yoga.
- I got a didjeridoo.
- Cub got training pants.
- We built a chicken coop.
- Daddy moved back to Colorado.
- All three girls participated in their first gymnastic expo.
- We got our chicken permit.
- We built a water-fun table for cub and the girls.
- We got chickens.
- Our good friend sent us The Book with No Pictures, which all parents should own.
- Papa and I went to the symphony with one of my friends.
- We visited our super-cool, homesteading (I feel like there should be a scale for just how "homestead" you are, like the crunchy mom scale) mountain-living friends.
- We attended the opening of the new, outdoor portion of the local children's museum.
- M learned to ride her bike!
- My ignition broke again and my car had to be towed and fixed.
- I just got my car back today.
- The girls all made some cool pillows, which was their first use of my sewing machine.
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