Two father's day

I was catching up with the posts I follow and found that several of you have fathers that were not your birth parents. That means so much to me now that we have Sydney and I'm hoping to be thought of as "Father", years from now.

I had completely given up on ever being a father. I actually hadn't given it a thought in years. Then, when we had the chance to take Sydney and I said my very quick and not well thought out yes, I didn't think what it would be like. In my mind, I think it was a little like rescuing a puppy. I mean, how hard could it be to raise a child. Ohhh, how I miss that naivete! And, poor Sydney went from no fathers...well a succession of men who provided she and her mother a temporary place to live...to two fathers. Okay, that's gotta be wierd. In the beginning, she told a few different stories because she didn't know how that would be accepted. And, we encouraged her to tell whatever story she wanted to...so long as it was true. She could call us her uncles because Rob is her uncle, even though they don't share any blood relationship, or she could call us fathers, or she could just say she was living with us. Anything, so long as it was true. And, it was a pretty hard fact to hide since we both went to all functions together, and we alternate picking her up, and there's just no hiding the fact that there are two men being responsible and an absence of women. Not to say that there are no women. We have friends and she has friend's mothers, and we have neighbors. But, it's been pretty obvious that there are no women in the house. And, because of that, I've had to learn all kinds of things I never knew before, like what the letters in a bra size mean, and the difference between briefs and bikinis, and how a bathing suit is supposed to fit and why conditioner is important for long hair. But jeez, I'm still incredibly confused about women's sizes. (What's up with the odd/even thing, anyway?)

But, despite the fact that I'm not her birth parent, and despite the fact that the adoption is on hold cuz the lawyer went bankrupt and didn't refund our retainer, I can't imagine my life without her. I really love being a father. And, because I'm the feeder and the nurse and the hairdresser and the clothes buyer, I get celebrated on both mother's and father's days.

But, yesterday, we focused on Rob, the other father in her life and what he wanted to do to celebrate was take a nap. So we kept quiet and let him do it. And, I spent the day making up for taking Saturday off from chores to go on our little road trip. And, we got caught up on all the latest horror movies, and I taught Sydney how to appreciate a good horror movie...if they give you a really gross contingency, like "inject this epinephrin directly into my heart if I pass out", they're going to do it at some point. And, the hero's getaway is never easy, so if you think they've escaped with a minimum of bloodshed, they're going to have to escape again. Horror is so predictable in the movies.

Time for an update on the cmas quilt. Here are blocks 7 and 8. The little wagon is the center of the quilt. I spent a lot of time getting all those half square triangles just right. I decided not to repeat any fabric in the dark half. The lighter neutrals have to repeat because there wasn't enough in my stash and my mentor's stash combined to make all of them required for this quilt. Three little stars left to add and the tree block will be finished. Oops! I forgot all about them and they are important to the overall quilt as a repeating theme.






Take care and have a great Monday. I'm working hard today to catch up from taking Friday off. Wow, two days in a row of catching up is too much for anyone. Lane