being in a bad mood is quite unflattering
(hannah and caroline and me, part ten)


april 12th, 2006 was my first day at pet supplies "plus". the two year anniversary came and went with no more fanfare than it should have. that is to say, there was no fanfare. i started thinking about my being there along with my being in huntsville along with my working at humc. over the course of the last four-plus years, the number of nights that sarah has spent at home as a single parent probably comes close to 200 i would think. is that number high? let me think out loud. let's just say i close the store, on average, two nights a week. over two years, that would be at least 100 nights, right? i have to believe the total from the previous two years would be close to that number as well. 200 might even be low-balling it. so, since we have expanded our family to include children, sarah has accumulated close to two-thirds of a year worth of time educating herself in the ways of being a single-mom. me, on the other hand? i would guess that my nights spent alone with child or children probably come closer to 10. you read that right. 10. ten! maybe less than that. it's not many. but it's too many for me.

i bring this up because i have been in a bad mood since around lunchtime on monday. that was about the time that sarah told me she'd be attending a dinner away from home on tuesday night, which is completely fine. i do things all the time away from the house. work, softball, basketball. she should be afforded nights like that, herself, and i should be happy to allow for those nights. in theory, i should. in reality, i have been a complete brat, and only this morning have i been able to shake my hurt feelings that arose after i was made aware i'd be home alone with the girls. selfishly, i know that the only reason i am shaking them now is that i don't have a "just daddy" night at home scheduled for another eight days. "what is your problem?", you may be asking. i am asking that, myself.

any time with the girls is precious time. last night was no different. i picked them up from the church and every single minute of the evening was fine. no, it was better than fine. it was wonderful. and easy. we picked up some mcdonald's on the way home. i fed caroline while hannah watched nickelodeon and ate her dinner. we all were completely content as suppertime drew to it's end. hannah made her way into the living room. i followed shortly with caroline and laid her down for her regularly scheduled evening nap. i came into the kitchen and browsed around on the computer for a few minutes. hannah came in and asked if we could go outside and blow bubbles while the baby was asleep, which we did. we came back in the house and woke up caroline together. as sesame stree provided the background noise, hannah and i worked on an art "project" while caroline played with some happy meal toys and enjoyed some tummy time. i took caroline upstairs, changed her diaper, put on her pajamas, came downstairs and gave her her bedtime bottle. i put her to bed. hannah and i, then, made our way upstairs for her own bedtime routine, which includes the application of some chapstick, brushing her hair, marking off a day on her calendar and reading some of her winnie the pooh book. after kissing her goodnight, i came back downstairs and prepared bottles for today and that took care of the girls. there wasn't an obstacle to be seen, heard or overcome all night. yet, i was still in a foul mood when sarah arrived home from her dinner. i left immediately to go lock up the church, mad at the world. that was the night.

(something else that i've been chewing on is how my mood correlates with the braves winning and losing. they lost last night. didn't score one freaking run against a guy they lit up just about a week ago. i wonder if my mood would have improved sooner if the result went the other way. i tend to think that it would. and that, too, goes to prove what a dick i am.)

i love my girls. all three of them. immensely. i don't even like to think about what my life would be without them. with hannah and caroline, my mood from monday afternoon through last night, though, shows me that my love for them is much easier to grasp and feel when it is wrapped in the context of our family being together. all four of us. as one. don't hear me wrong. i am not saying that i think my love for them is conditional. not in the least. even though i felt, and probably in some ways acted, like an asshole all day yesterday, as i drove to the church, i told myself that the girls wouldn't know of it. not in any way. and they didn't. we had a flawless evening. there wasn't a chance in hell that i was going to let hannah or caroline sense that there was anywhere in the world i'd rather be than with them last night. in those four hours with them before bedtime, i didn't want to be anywhere else. that's the god's honest truth. hooray for compartmentalizing!

it's not that i didn't want to be a dad. it's not that i didn't want children. it's that i didn't (and don't) want to be a dad without a mom. it's that i didn't (and don't) want children by myself, outside of that "context" of our defined and considered family.

nights like last night make me appreciate the nights that i am away from home and sarah is home with the girls without me. every time i have had a daddy night, things have been perfect. because her sample-size is much larger, she has had to suffer through nights on her own that the girls have been, how do you say, not on their best behavior. i think more of her because of those nights and how infrequently she lets the "potential" for those nights ruin her whole day or our time together. she is a better parent than me, and i am ok with that. that said, it's probably not very fair.

i'll be with the girls by myself again on may 1st, and i hope i don't dread it. the dread is such a waste of time. i hope i can wrap my head around how special that night should be and not hold it against sarah or the world because of my immature want to always have a teammate available at home.

it's funny, because sarah (who can read my moods quite easily) has worried about her studying for license exams taking away from "family" time, but she misses the point. it's not that i needed her to do anything last night. paraphrasing piglet, i just wanted and needed "to be sure of you." sure of our family. sure that i am not alone (which i know that i am not.). in the moment (or day), that's hard for me to remember.

here's to improving the quality of my discontent.