I thought everything was okay....(Part 4)

[MCS]

MCS

The family is not broken to be held together like a piece of fired pottery, it is more like plasticine and hence the family has changed and moulded to a different shape, a different piece which is of itself beautiful.

Vanilla

V,

This one quote here is so beautiful and thought provoking. I look at what my relationship with my kids has become and I'm really proud of that. That is one of the blessings in this whole mess. We have a blast at home and do a lot of things that we wouldn't have done in our hum-dum life before BD. Here's a list of things that we have done just over the last couple weeks.

- Movie night in the 'man cave' in the basement.
- Went bowling for the first time (D4 just said this weekend she wanted to go back)
- Cosmic (black-light) inflatable bounce house
- Went swimming in the pool at the college (it was 10F degrees outside)
- Kids night at their favorite restaurant
- Special boxes from Amazon (they always say all the boxes that come are for me)
- Some cool Valentines Day gifts and candy for them

V, I see that this has really re-adjusted my priorities and the kids are first in my life. I used to work a little later in the evening than W, but now I see that I pick them up from school that the time that they first get home from school is nice for them because they just like to be at their house and chill out.

I also see that other people see me as the stability. The after-school care just the other day said how joyful, personable and amazing our kids are and I caught myself tearing up and actually knowing exactly what they were talking about.

After my S5 decided to carve into our friends' table (part of the issues this weekend) I saw that I didn't loose my patience and had established the balance of discipline and empathy for him. After I got him to calm down, I went out into the garage by myself at my friends house and just cried for a few minutes. It was so tough understanding what they were going through, but still needed to be a parent at the same time. Later, as I was leaving one of my friends gave me a hug and said to me that it must be tough for me with everything going on. She then said to me "MCS, you're a really good Dad and you love them a lot" Well, then I teared up again.

My kids have always been so important to me, but since BD, they have become the center of everything I do. Even at their young age, they are the rock that I lean on by making sure that I'm doing everything possible for them. It still hurts when I see them hurting, but I can understand that I need to face that I can't do anything about W's decisions and how it affects them, but I need to do the best things I can do for them right now.