(your assumptions) serve you right

when we first moved to kansas and i was adjusting to the night meetings and traveling i was always a little worried when i wasn't going to be home.  (who am i kidding - i still worry about it!)  when i'm honest with myself, i really felt, deep down that j wasn't as good a parent as me.  that looks so horrible in print, but that's how i felt.  don't get me wrong, j is a wonderful father.  i knew ains was safe, cared for, and loved.  i just knew that he wasn't as good as me. he just wasn't plugged into her, didn't understand her as well as i did, wasn't as empathetic as i was. most probably because he didn't do things the way i did.  we present a unified parental front, but there were all the little quirks that i was sure were super vital that he didn't pay attention to. (and it didn't help that i was always pushing him to watch, learn and do it my way!)


over the last couple of weeks i've been gone frequently at night.  tonight we were all home and having a great time, cleaning up and making dinner.  As we sat down to eat, ains got upset because her milk wasn't warm enough.  'warm it! warm it! warm it mommy!!' was ringing out in the kitchen, and i grabbed it to stand up when j (in scary daddy voice) said to sit down. all three of us (baby, wife, and dog) sat quickly.  j looked ains in the eye and told her that if she wanted milk, she had to drink what she had.  if she didn't want to drink it, that was fine, but we were not warming it again.  i'm looking at him skeptically, knowing my child.  ains started to blubber, started to cry and i started to 'fix it'.  j gave me the 'trust me' look, and told ains that she could either eat dinner or go to bed.  ains said she wanted to eat and right before my very eyes, went from blubbering to eating and talking in a matter of minutes.  


it seemed so miraculous to me because i was sure that it wasn't going to work, that i was going to have to be super parent and do it all.  it is incredibly humbling to realize that sometimes you're the one getting in the way of other people.  j for all his faults could and does excel at anything he puts his mind to.  its helpful for me to remember that (cause he's also discovered that feigned incompetence lightens his workload!)  he is an excellent father and together we might make passable parents who succeed in passing very few of our own quirks, inconsistencies, and neuroses onto our children (fingers crossed).