End to a Week with Dad

Well, I’m not exactly sure how to start this, so I suppose I should pick up where I left off from the Facebook posts.  The rest of that first weekend alone with the girls went pretty well.  After “The Wiz” incident, I took the girls to the library for Shay’s weekly appointment with her reading tutor.  After that I took them to see Hotel Transylvania at the dollar theater in the mall (it was cold outside, hence all the movies.  I promise they do get outside).  The theater filled up with about forty pre-teens that had been milling around the mall all day, cussing up a storm as they walked in.  With each new F-bomb, the girls just stared at me wide-eyed with their mouths open.  So I told them to ignore it, that it’s “just a bunch of smelly pre-pubescent boys with their grimy Affliction tee shirts and chain wallets that contain nothing but the twenty bucks my mom gave them trying to show off for equally awkward girls that tower over them and cackle like frightened hyenas.”  I then warned them not to be like those kids, that kids like that are douche bags.  They just kind of looked at me and do what they do best:  pretend they didn’t hear me.  Then the movie started, and all was well.  They girls laughed at the movie and ate popcorn. I took a nap. 

Amy got home later that day, and they ran to her like they had just been freed from prison.  To tell you the truth, I did the same.  Not because I didn’t enjoy the weekend, but because I was excited to tell her about the week.  I found out that I can actually LIKE these kids.  I mean, I knew I was supposed to LOVE them and everything.  I told them so all the time.  They had said it to me, desperate for love from someone who won’t abandon them and treat them like garbage, love from someone who wouldn’t scream at them or lie to them or shuffle them from one family member to another.  Love from someone they can count on.  So I said it back.  Because I felt that I had to.  I know that’s harsh, but to be completely honest, it’s different with foster kids.  You think that the day they show up you’re going to have all those paternal instincts just wash over you and you’ll just say, “Ah! So this is what it is like to be a Dad.”  But it doesn’t happen like that.  You don’t know them, you never had that fun little pregnancy time (I say “fun” because I’ve never been pregnant…I suppose some of you women out there would beg to differ) where we pick shit out and paint rooms and wonder what to name them.  You don’t get to see them laugh the first time or speak the first time or walk for the first time etc etc, all those things that, from what I understand, build the bonds between parent and child.  No, they show up and you realize, “Holy shit, there are children in here, strangers in here, rifling through my stuff, playing with my phone, asking me things, needing things, wanting things.  Always, always wanting.  What have we done?”  Amy and I had been alone for so long, wondering if we were ever going to be able to conceive, going through that painful realization that maybe we weren’t able to.  We went through the tests, (guys, you haven’t lived until you’ve gone into a fertility clinic and are handed a test jar and a worn out Penthouse magazine by some old lady with a big red wig, calling you sweetheart just before she leads you into an awkward “spank tank” that has a couch with scratchy paper on it with Kenny G playing on a little radio beside it, and then told just before she shuts the door to this gross little house of horrors to let her know if there is any “spillage”), toyed with the idea of going through medical procedures, deciding if we were going to dip into savings for IVF, whatever.  But we just looked at one another one day and thought that perhaps we should try to help kids that need it, not just add another one to the planet that looks like us.  I’m not trying to be self-congratulatory here.  And believe me, I’m not knocking IVF.  Everyone’s path to a family is noble and brave and their own.   Our reasons were just as selfish as any other.  We needed to be parents.  So we decided on fostering and to let go of trying to control everything.  Let the chips fall as they may.  Anyway, that’s how we became foster parents.  And before that “Mom’s out of town so it’s just Dad and the kids” week, I think that in the back of my mind I wondered if it was possible to feel the same way about foster kids as it is with your “own” kids.  Would I be able to look down at them when they tell me they love me and be able to say it back with everything I have?  Would I be able see their need for love and realize that I need it from them just as much?  And more importantly: Do I LIKE them?  Yes.  Yes I do.  And I can.  It’s possible, even for this clueless fat guy.  Sure our bonding experiences didn’t happen eight years ago when all the cute stuff is happening.  But it’s happening now, and it’s great. They’re my kids.  And as long as they are here with us, I’ll love them like my own.  Maybe one day we’ll be able to adopt them.  Maybe not.  But as long as we’re foster parents, eventually it’ll happen. And we’re excited about that.

I apologize for getting a little sappy there, but I thought that an introduction and a little background information were in order.  I’ll leave with a funny thing Mo said the other night as I was putting them down for bed.

Mo:  “Dad, will you turn off all the lights?  Even the nightlight?  And shut the door?”

Me:  “Sure…but you don’t want any lights on?  Nothing?  I mean, I’m glad you aren’t afraid of the dark and all, but when I was your age, I at least wanted the hallway light on.”

Mo:  “Well…it’s because my skin is dark.  You see, if a monster or someone comes in to get me, they won’t be able to see me.  I’ll just close my eyes and they’ll think I’m not in here.”

Me:  “Oh…uh…I don’t know how to respond to that.”

Mo: “Dad, it’s called camouflage.  Haven’t you ever heard of camouflage?”

Me: “Yes, darlin’, I’m familiar with the concept of camouflage.  Good Lord.  Go to sleep.”

Then I giggled the whole way down the stairs to tell Amy what had just happened.