Hailey is a rooster; up with the sun and when her wake-up call for “daddieee!” crowed before the clock read six I was in no mood to spring out of bed. Drowsily I crawled out from under the covers and tended to Hailey’s needs; a fresh diaper, milk, hair brushing and some cuddles. It had been another sleepless night for me and even though I apologized to Olivia numerous times before she finally fell asleep I couldn’t forgive myself for exploding at her, making sleep an elusive dream. I may not have slept at all, trouble-shooting all the routine and behavioral issues we experienced last week, kept my mind franticly diagnosing and problem solving. I needed a band-aid, a quick fix, duct-tape. But really I needed Kim and she was not coming home for another week.
At least Olivia got to sleep-in and when she woke up, a little before eight, she coyly poked out of her room and saw me preparing breakfast. She ran down the hall into the kitchen, jumped into my arms and gave me a huge hug. Forgiveness or forgetfulness? She immediately reminded me “daddy made a mistake” and asked “can I have my princess watch on?” Wow, are all three year olds so forgiving? I reinforced the fact that indeed daddy made a big mistake and apologized again as we retrieved the watch from her bedroom.
That Sunday morning Olivia, Hailey and I went to Sam’s Club for some essentials, pull-ups, wipes, toilet paper, milk etc… When we came out of the store it was pouring down rain. Did I have their rain jackets? No. Did they care? No. Did I care? Not really. They thought it was great fun, being pushed at warp-speed through the deluge in the extra-wide double-kid-seat shopping cart. Having parked a half-mile from the exit, we were completely drenched by the time I hurried them into the Forester. Strange how Olivia’s forgiving nature and the soaking rain seemed to cleanse the bad-dad-funk from the previous week, refreshing my parental spirit, inspiring me and from then on our lives without mommy became manageable.
Determined to get our schedules normalized; I planned on strictly adhering to the daily routine, I cleared the calendar of excess activities, no more late night parties, and I intended to get the girls to bed on time.
Monday was teacher training day at Olivia and Hailey’s preschool that meant no school. What a great start at attempting to stabilize their normal routine. Thankfully Bubie (my mom) agreed to take care of them. I dropped them off at her house and after a few hours she brought them home for a nap. I rushed through my workday without taking any breaks with the intention of greeting them right when they woke-up from nap. I was only an hour off. Still, in desperation to get their daily agenda perfected, we started dinner a half hour early and after clean-up, bath-time and story-time they ended up in bed right on schedule. That was it. No whining or crying. No bed-time child-induced parental tests. Just slumbering children. What took me ten days to figure that out?
Tuesday, after returning a stack of books to the library, we went to ‘the beach.’ Dubbed by Hailey “the beach” was definitely a favorite summer activity for ‘daddy days’ and with Labor Day looming close, sadly it was our last visit of the year to the water-park-type pool. The newer design pool, built toddler friendly, even with several attentive life-guards was still a dangerous place to take Olivia and Hailey solo. Twice this summer I saved Hailey from drowning. The first rescue happened to be our initial ‘beach’ visit of the season. She climbed the in-pool-playground, with the intentions of utilizing her favorite apparatus, the tube slide, before I could circle around and get set to receive her at the bottom of the slide she uninhibitedly slid down without my consent. Had she exited the slide with her feet down she could have stood upright in the two foot depth water, instead she hit the water on her back, parallel to the surface and dropped under. I swiftly hurdle stepped through the knee-high water to pull her up. She may have been under a whole half a second but it was enough for my heart to skip a ton of beats and for the life-guard to shift from leisurely sitting to almost jumping in after her. She didn’t even cry. After an eternal hug and short lecture she scampered back up the apparatus and waited for the thumbs-up to slide down again.
The second time I saved her from drowning was a few weeks ago. We had just got to the ‘beach,’ maybe five minutes in and then everyone got kicked out. Something of bodily origin was floating in the pool, I immediately checked Olivia’s suit for dirt-marks but she was clean, so it wasn’t her doing. Anyway, we decided to try the indoor pool. Olivia and Hailey were using those small black tight-fit air-filed training inter-tubes. Hailey intentionally threw her head back, kicked her feet up, effectively capsizing backwards and flipping herself underwater. Her tush was on top of the surface and her head below. Unlike the first water-rescue, this time I was nonchalant anticipating her error and as she flipped herself underwater I seamlessly rotated her 360 degrees using her own momentum. The life-guard probably thought we were practicing a stunt, later to be filmed and sent in to the show Jack A$$. Surprisingly and fortunately our last occasion at the ‘beach’ was incident free.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we stuck to our routine. We woke-up around the usual time, got to school on time, I got to work almost on time, picked ‘em up, dinner, clean-up, bath, story and bed time all went unbelievably well. Olivia and Hailey really impressed me, I found myself congratulating their efforts ten-to-one over correcting any bad behavior. Even all the bathroom drama minimized. I was still having problems sleeping sans-spouse nonetheless I managed to pull it all together and make the best of our remaining few days without mommy.
Saturday morning Miss Laura, our stellar sitter, came over early to watch the girls so I could go play Hockey and then Nana (Kim’s mom) came over mid morning so I could clean house. Where did all this laundry come from? For six hours I detailed every inch of the house, I vacuumed, dusted, moped and folded seven loads of laundry. Rach, (my sister) came over to drop Sadie (my four year old niece) off for an hour to play with the girls. Rach mentioned that she uses a cleaning service.
Kim’s plane finally touched down around four in the afternoon. Olivia and Hailey were ready to go pick-up mommy and we were out the door within ten minutes. So happy to see her, I knocked her massive seventy-pound suitcase to the ground which stood in my way of a big hug. She was wiped out from the twenty four hour travel time and eleven hour time zone change. Yet she forced herself to stay up through the evening and tucked the girls in bed for the night before she crashed for twelve hours. It was nice having her home again.
In Kim’s absence, I found a new sense of admiration and appreciation for her contribution to the make-up of our family. I missed her cooperation, stability and companionship. I learned two important lessons over the past couple weeks; First, I can’t be the father I wish to be without Kim. Second, contrastingly I can manage parenting on my own.
Originally posted on BabyCenter 09/28/06
