Had a blast last night camping. Did some fishing, watched my girls beat up on the sons of the friends I was out there with. My oldest pretty much beat up on the oldest boy there playing tag so he went and pouted in a tent for a while. Somewhat guilty pleasure on my part seeing my girl totally chase him down in tag and catch him every time. He was bragging about how he was the fastest kid in his school...
ANYWAY - the trip was great. We stayed for a long time and left after smoking some marshmallows on the fire. I almost left before the marshmallows buy my oldest got REALLY upset and started to cry and say things like "we never go on a family camping trip with just OUR family". That ripped my guts out, so we stayed. She seemed well pleased on the ride home. As we were driving back I opened the windows and let the wind blow through my truck. It's very cool for this time of year up here so they bundled up under a blanket and giggled and laughed. The smell of the lush farm-land of Iowa in the middle of summer is a huge remembrance to me as a kid and I wanted them to smell that same thing.
When I picked them up from W yesterday, I got to see a standing testament to the wisdom of the 180 and LRT techniques in DB. I stopped letting her be mad at me by chasing her a couple of weeks back. In the book it talks about giving the WAS enough space for the hard reality of the sitch to kick in. When I walked in she said she 'didn't feel good' and that it wasn't fair that she had to decide on the divorce and worry about wrecking the kids' lives. My gut feeling was to rescue her, but I pulled back in time to avoid that nose dive. I simply asked what I could do to help her feel divorced and give her space. She cried, I gave her a hug then left.
It sucks to see her cry - but she just referenced the divorce as an active decision that needs to be made. Last Sunday she told me she WAS going to file.
