New Life Day 1

Well, it’s been an interesting few weeks and I’ve had little time to myself to make any recent posts that weren’t motivated by some other factor besides just wanting to write, so I’m doing that this morning.

Today is day one in the newest chapter of our lives up here in Stanly County. I got up at 6:00 yesterday and drove to OBX to pick up my daughter, all her belongings, and bring her back here to live with us full time. No, she didn’t hate life at home, her mother wasn’t throwing her out, or anything negative like that.

She spent most of the summer up here with us and then I took her back to the OBX for a few days so she could go to a trip with her church. After the trip was over I picked her back up and brought her back for the remaining few weeks before school started. On the day I picked her back up it hit me just how much I’d missed her when she was gone that brief time, and it hit me hard.

She’s always lived with her Mom and other Dad but I’ve always been able to see her anytime I wanted to, or when she wanted to, but living 3-5 hours apart makes it tough on both families to easily transport her back and forth for short visits. By the time one of us drives to the other and back we’ve lost a day, then another day to make the return trip, so a 3 day weekend pretty much ended up being 1 day with a lot of travel on both ends of it; not always cost effective or worth it for everyone involved.

That’s pretty much always made me the vacation Dad, the one you spent Christmas with, summer, long weekends, and holidays. Other than that we chat over the phone or on Facebook but don’t otherwise get to see each other much.

Getting to spend the whole summer with her this year made it painful to send her back home to the OBX again so I just told her how I felt about the whole situation and let it be her decision. I’ve missed most of my daughter’s first’s, and as my wife can tell you I’m a big fan of first-things. First steps, first words, first day of school, first ham-sandwich on a Wednesday in September, etc.  I think all that comes from my photo-journalistic-nostalgic side (more on that later).

I talked to her in the car on the ride home that day I picked her up from her church trip. We were driving back from Zebulon where I’d picked her up and it just hit me when I looked across the seat and saw her sitting there in the passenger seat that I wanted to see that everyday. I miss her jokes, her laugh, her overly corny sense of humor (which she gets from her mother). She’s 100% like her Mom in most things she does. They even sound alike most of the time.  Her mom and I were all part of a big group of friends all throughout high school and sometimes when Hannah will say something I flash back to the high school days and can hear her mom saying the exact same kind of thing. The tone of voice and inflection are 100% Michelle! (I’m sure Michelle is groaning in pain if she’s reading this right now.)

I guess I want a little bit of me in her too, before its too late and she’s all grown up. I want a chance to have Dad time while I still means really long hugs and kisses on the cheek and before it turns into boyfriends and asking for the car keys for the weekend, before I’m just a bystander like all parents eventually become.

We told her she needed to decide before school started so we could get her registered and transferred and all the other mess that comes along with that if she chose to stay up here. A few days before she was slated to go home to her Mom’s she told me she wanted to stay here with me.

I hadn’t realized it until that moment, but I must have been holding my breath for two weeks. It all flew out of me in a rush; excited, nervous, worried. In the span of three seconds my mind went through reorganizing the house to give her a bedroom, having to figure out how to cancel child support, all the possible things she might need for school, picturing afternoons sitting on the patio in a chair as the sun goes down, wondering if her Mom was gonna be ok with it, and realizing that I need to make more money if I’m gonna feed another mouth every day for the next couple of years. It’s like watching all four seasons flash by on a time lapse camera. All of the sudden my life was going to change like I’d always wanted it to.

I’ve wanted my daughter to live with me for years, but it’s just never made sense. Her mom and Dad at home have a great life together. She’s got brothers and sisters that love and adore her. I lived in apartments or condos, not being able to afford the nice place she deserved to live in and grow up in and my finances were all over chart. I’m up one month and down the next. I just couldn’t provide a stable place for her compared to what her Mom did, so I never tried.

At thirty-four years old, my life is finally where it needs to be. I’ve married the woman of my dreams and we have a son from her previous marriage. We’ve got closet-child, our adopted 20 year old that’s been living with us for almost two years that’s half daughter to me and half little-sister. Hannah can have her own room, a yard to play in, and a place where I feel safe enough to let her take off on her bike and not come back for half a day without worrying.

We work in the shop together a lot when we come together on a project she wants to do. Currently the next project on her slate is a chair for out back. I’ve built custom Adirondack chairs for all of us out on the patio; Amy has hers and I have mine. Jordan has adopted the prototype as hers and Joshua never sits still long enough to need one anyway. Now I’ve promised Hannah her own chair and from what I hear it’s going to be unique; a profusion of colors; blue, pink, orange, green, yellow, etc. Who knows, maybe they’ll sell and we can make more of them.

The point is I can finally provide her a home that’s worthy of a child and hopefully be able to give her all the things she needs. She’s got a few formative years left where I hope I can make an influence on her life in a positive way. Her mother has done awesome with her all these years, so I’ve got a lot to live up to. She’s in all honors classes at her old school so I’ve got to make sure she works hard, studies hard, and keeps her grades where they’re suppose to be.

I finally get to go to her ball games and watch her marching band perform! I get to go to her concerts, and anything else she does that I can attend and cheer for my kid. There was always something nostalgic about those times I was able to see her perform at Manteo because that’s where I went to school too. It was amazing to remember marching on that same field myself 16 years ago and now seeing my daughter play some of the same music and cheer for the same school.  I’m slowly adjusting to the new school idea. My daughter is now a North Stanly County High School Marching Comet (as opposed to Marching Redskins).  I’ll admit to no little amount of joy that her school colors are Carolina Blue and white. (cough… Tarheel… cough). I’m gonna be the tall, loud, good-looking guy in the white cowboy hat in the stands cheering. I can’t wait for all of that!

There’s gonna be some hard days too I’m sure. Hannah isn’t used to being the only child in a house most of the time. With little brothers and sisters running around her Mom’s house and a daycare going on most days its easy to get out of doing things, easy to slip between the cracks. She’s not going to be able to do that here. Jordan is grown and does her own thing most of the time so aside from feeding her she’s mostly not a parental/sibling concern. We only have Josh a couple nights a week and on the weekends so we don’t have to worry about his schoolwork. There’s no one else to focus our attention on but her. I’m fairly certain the negative ramifications of that haven’t sunk in with her yet. She has no idea what it’s going to be like to be the only one responsible for things.

I bring this up only because when I picked her up this summer I unwittingly also brought home this little troll of a creature called “not me.” He’s a mischievous little bastard I’ll tell ya! He does all kinds of things around the house that the other kids get scolded for. Not me leaves her laundry all over floor, he messes up her bed after she’s made it for the day AND manages to make it look like he slept in it all night. He’s a talented little turd to be sure.  Not me sneaks candy into her room and leaves the wrappers under her bed. The little turkey even put a dent in my riding lawn mower a few months ago. I’m pretty sure Not Me lives on a diet of coke, life savers, and all my favorite cereals, not to mention brownies. I’m amazing he can be so sneaky given the huge amount of junk food he eats. I was very sure when I picked her up yesterday that Not Me stayed on the OBX with Michelle. Here there is only us and Hannah.

Amy and I have been sitting down nights this last week trying to figure out ground rules, bed times, what happens when you break the rules, and all the other countless minutia that teenage-parent-bootcamp haven’t prepared us for. We’ve gotten most of them figured out and the rest we’ll figure out as the need arises, like all parents do I guess.

I wonder how many days before she’s screaming to go back to her Mom’s?…

Today was a full of a few firsts for me on the Dad frontier. Today was the first time I’ve ever driven her to school.  Her band camp runs from 8:30 until 3:30 each day until school starts and the buses don’t run yet because school hasn’t started. Today was the first day I had to say “Go change your shoes and put on something you can march in” and the first time I’ve gotten to pack a lunch for her. Considering they’re not sure if she’s going to be able to play sax or clarinet this year in the band I’m sure it’s gonna be the first day I have to say “go practice your clarinet” too because she hasn’t touched it in two years, since she started playing the saxophone at her previous school.

All in all Hannah has handled all this with her normal fluidity. She doesn’t seem scared of making new friends or intimidated by a new high-school, new classmates, new schedule, etc. She’s rolling with the punches pretty well so far. I’d have been mortified of having to change schools when I was her age. I had an awesome group of friends I wouldn’t want to be away from. Then again I’m very much a habit-oriented creature. I get a routine I like and then I strongly dislike when something changes it. My wife is the same way with some thing. All in all it creates an interesting atmosphere around the homestead.

Well, it’s 10:30 in the morning and I’ve got a fair amount of things to get accomplished today myself so I’d better get to it. I’m sure I’ll be posting more on the new family lifestyle soon!

Peace!