Today is a day to wake up and email all the Daddies. I have a lot of adopted/foster Daddies. I’m kind of a charity case in that department. I have Daddies with no biological children and I have Daddies that sit me at the table next to their biological children (who are near me in age).

They include me in their lives to varying degrees. It is never as much as I “want” but it is what I get to have. I understand that and I don’t bitch.

I am very careful to never, ever complain that a Daddy isn’t giving me enough attention. I know better. I know what happens to little girls who don’t make their Daddies happy. They stop having those relationships. You have to be fun the whole time you are with a Daddy.

Obviously I don’t spend much time with these men now that I have children and I can’t pull off such a facade so easily.

I need more support now than I have needed since my own early childhood. So I don’t see my Daddies much now because I can’t keep the whine out of my voice. If you aren’t fun, you aren’t invited.

I understand.

Also: I’m not willing to bring my kids to naked, drug-enhanced camping sessions. So I lost access to quite a few crowds of friends. I have no trouble going to such events (whether I do drugs or wear clothes or not I am pretty comfortable around naked high people) so it isn’t a judgment thing.

My kids are not going to grow up with that as “normal”.

It is a specific, conscious choice. They have grown up around casual nudity, but not around casual drug use. They see parents who barely drink, and who use medication grudgingly for mood control. Otherwise they don’t see drug use modeled. It is going to stay that way for years.

Right now the party line is “Drugs/medication are only to be used as prescribed by a doctor for the official use.” And all the super fun things we used to have in the house were passed on to other worthy childless individuals. They are having loads of fun. Good for them.

Am I a hypocrite? Maybe. I’ll talk to them about drugs when they are teenagers after they haven’t grown up with it. I won’t candy-coat anything or lie about anything then.

They are little kids and have poor judgment and a little slip could be fatal so easily just because of their body mass. The only reasonable line is a hard no stance.

Did you notice that whole my kid’s weight is in the 20-something%? (Yeah, I’ve already forgotten. Because I care so much.) She could get alcohol poisoning rather easily. Yes, I know that little kids drink without dying all the time. My brother Tommy enjoyed tequila shots from the age of three. I heard lots of stories. He would go out and drink with the men. They thought it was hilarious. I don’t know how many they would let him have.

I’d like to mention that Tommy was hit by a car because he had such a substance abuse problem by twelve.

My kids are not going to grow up with normalized drug and alcohol use. I believe in better living through chemistry but I also believe that you should be pretty careful what you put in your body. You need to make specific choices. While you are a kid and your body is growing, your cells should remain as whole as possible. What you do as an adult is your business. Get to your full potential before you slam doors shut.

I know a number of growth stunted men who are sad they did so much methamphetamine as teenagers. Hey, sucks to be you. (Ok, they were never going to be tall. It probably didn’t stunt their growth that much.)

Alcohol is poison. Marijuana seems to make it much harder for teenage boys (not as much chicks–no one is sure why) to find a direction in life. If you start when you are older it doesn’t have the same ambition blocking effect, and this shit is researched. No I don’t have the research in front of me so I’m not citing it. I gave the book back to my shrink and I haven’t bought it for myself. I probably should. Not today.

So I feel comfortable starting with “Drugs are wonderful tools that can be misused to become very dangerous easily. Kind of like my electric saw. Just like you exercise a lot of caution with it, be careful with drugs.”

My kids are getting a weird education. We read books about living with parents who have ___________ health problem. You name it, we’ve read about it. I want my kids to have scope for different kinds of lives. I am consciously and specifically working towards children who are not default able-ists. They understand that different people have different support needs in life. We are all highly variable.

It’s not a bad thing. It is just what is.

My kids and I spend a fair bit of time window shopping as a way to pass time. We go out and interact with the world. We talk to people. We walk around. They see and interact with a wide variety of kinds of bodies.

It is neat watching them improve. Shanna is way better at perceiving brush-offs than she used to be. It used to be hard to get her to walk ten feet down the side walk because she got to the first person and was content to stay all day. Now she can complete a walk with only 3-40 minutes of chatting per person. It is almost moving at a measurable pace.

My patience has grown by leaps and bounds compared to what it used to be. Some people meditate. I attempt to take Their Royal Heiny’s for a walk and deal with being on the circuit with beauty pageant queens. “I must stop and greet my adoring fans.” Once in a while… Shanna actually fucking says that. Want to know what is worse? They are her adoring fans.” They’ve been talking to her for years. They think she is great. When they see me running by myself… they ask for her.

Yup, sorry the chaperone got out alone. I know I am less interesting. Deep sigh.

Naw, it’s ok. I think it is hilarious. I’m glad it is happening. It certainly lets me feel like I’m off the hook for being a narcissist. Ha. I haven’t been the princess for years. Sigh.

Today will be fun. I should get up and go to the store to get apples so Shanna can make Noah apple pancakes for breakfast. They negotiated without checking the larder. I kinda wish they hadn’t done that, but what can you do?

Shanna’s new six year old chore is to be responsible for breakfast one day a week. She is surprisingly good at it.

Watching them fills me with pride. I know that kids do what kids do. I don’t think my kids are “special”. Only they are. Because I have been with them almost every day of their lives. I think if you count up all the hours I’ve missed and compressed them it is less than three months. It is going to explode soon though because they are doing more and more classes. Shanna is probably actually getting closer to six months of time away total. If I’m realistic.

But still. I get to be with them most of the time. I’ve watched every minute of helplessness melt into competence. I’ve stared and applauded every fucking milestone.

My baby is responsible for cooking breakfast. I feel pride. Even if it is stupid. My kid is learning things. She’s responsible. She’s helpful. She wants to be productive. She wants to know how to do things.

My kid will know how to cook more things at ten than I knew how to cook at twenty-five. I learn off the internet and out of books. I have had a few female friends kind of sort of show me a few things. Mostly I didn’t see food prepared as a child and I showed up at adulthood living on ramen. And things I could microwave.

Watching my kid learn the life skills that have been hard and embarrassing for me is really trippy. She learns things with ease. She doesn’t struggle. She doesn’t resist. She oozes into understanding. I see her take a few practice swishes in the air before she tries something and then: presto. She just does it.

Sometimes she spills. When spills she says, “Ah shucks. I hate it when that happens.” Just like I do.

She’s learning about cleaning up the space and cross-contamination worries. She can’t rattle off the names of specific illnesses yet, but she will soon.

She’s still pretty serious about saying she wants to be a doctor. I am not holding anyone to the career they pick when they are five, and yet.

I talk to her like she is someone who might have to do medical school. You need to figure out how to memorize lots of long and complicated names if you do that. You need to have a rich and varied understanding of how things layer together.

No time like the present to start learning that.

It’s not just about what happened, you have to care about why it happened and how. You have to think systematically about how to solve the riddle/puzzle. Although sometimes staring into space at the blinking lights and thinking abstractly brings you to the right answer.

It’s tricky. Finding the right answer. You can’t always go straight at a problem. Sometimes you have to figure out how to sidle in sideways.

Social problems. How to fix a toy that breaks. How to make food. How to ride your bike. All of these problems have solutions. Figuring it out might be tricky. Don’t worry, with enough patience we will get to the right answer.

She nods and looks up at me with perfect trust. Like I am Yoda. (I almost said “fucking Yoda” and I decided that had implications that didn’t work for the sentence. Ahem.)

Right now if you ask my kids if I would lie to them the response is something like, “Sometimes in obviously silly ways but never ever for real.” I’ve heard other people ask. Yeah–I do tell silly lies sometimes. I make it obvious in super dramatic massively over the top body language and tone of voice changes. Dropping and raising my voice multiple times on each word. Like dropping and raising the pitch. My whole body will shake and twitch and contort.

You can’t miss that something changed.

So I do lie for effect sometimes. When it is funny.

But no, I don’t lie to my kids. I evade. I tell them the part of the truth they need to hear today. I recognize that their ability to interpret what I say is limited in scope. I reread development books over and over to remind myself of “appropriate” disclosure. I do not treat them like my friends. I do not “share” my thoughts with them much.

When I have a really bad day and I’m crying a lot the kids ask why. At this point the patter is something like, “The things that happen to you in your life inprint on your brain. They make you who you are. They decide how you react to things. The things that happened to me during my childhood were very different than the things that are happening in your childhood and sometimes when I notice how different I feel sad. I wish someone had loved me the way I love you. Watching you makes me realize that I wasn’t actually a bad little girl. I just didn’t have a mom who was able to take care of me. ”

Shanna gives me a hug. Calli (if she is in the room) gives me a hug. Then we move on to playing and the tears kind of roll and I smile anyway. I make sure it is the real-fake-smile. The one I perfected in front of the mirror many years ago.

People usually know a fake smile because it doesn’t reach your eyes. I learned how to control the eye muscles a long time ago. That’s how you make people believe you are “happy”. You scrunch the eye muscles. The lips actually matter less.

So I play with them and hope that they never read this.

This is the happiest I have ever been. I am grateful for every single minute that I get to spend with them. I am glad I get to watch a happy childhood. I don’t resent you. I’m not mad. I am jealous. I wish I could have had someone love me. I wish I had been protected.

I used to rage at Noah because he was not protective. He was totally bewildered. He didn’t have any idea what I was expecting of him. Really most of our engagement was a rage fest. He wrote a lot of long, private journal entries in which he worried about me abusing him. Because I’m a nosy mother fucker there isn’t a “private” in this house.

He says I haven’t yelled at him like that since. I’m pretty careful to listen to feedback that I’m bordering on abusive.

Ack. Kid woke up. Time to go.