My time with my daughter is the most precious thing I have in the whole world.
I made the very right decision to divorce her mother almost exactly three years ago – June 1st, 2013. The time since has been extremely amicable and we actually get along better now than we did in the time leading up to the divorce, largely because we both remain focused on doing whatever is best for our little girl.
Those strangers who enter into your lives while you go through the process of divorce – lawyers, clerks, bankers – have all commented on our particular divorce in a favourable way. Even our mechanic, who we both continue to use, can’t help but comment whenever he sees me how happy he is that we both seem to have found happiness apart from each other and actually tells me how he tells other people about us and our story and how a divorce can actually work out. It’s all very humbling to hear and it makes me feel good that our efforts are noticed; while we may sometimes find frustration, we are quick to regroup and get back on track and provide the best example for our daughter that we can.
Our custody schedule is a 2-3-2 schedule, meaning that’s how many nights we have her in a row before the other has her, and it has been working well. It means that each week I have her for different nights in the week, allowing for alternating weekends and for us both to participate and bring her to swimming lessons or gymnastics classes on alternating weeks.
In my line of work I travel a lot and so the 2-3-2 has been out of whack in recent weeks, with me either being out of town for slightly longer stretches or being in town and having my daughter for slightly longer stretches. As any parent can attest, especially a single parent… man, sometimes we just need a break. As much as we love spending time with our kids, putting them down early one night can just be a god-send. I’m lucky in that I have breaks like this built into my custody schedule and, as much as I miss her when I don’t have her, it is nice to have that adult time to regroup and get some sanity back before another stretch of being the single parent. It’s been a balancing act the last three years but one I think I’ve come to have a solid amount of control over.
There is a lot of pressure on both parent and child when you only see you child half the time. The parent wants to make sure that their time with their child is perfect. This doesn’t mean showering with gifts or letting them have their own way – believe me, there are fairly strict rules and consequences in my house – but you work hard to try and build your own consistency in the half of their life that you have control over. This is how meals go… chores and expectations are this… this is the reward for that and that is the punishment for this… a consistency meant to help ensure that we don’t waste any of the time we have together squabbling or having to deal with the shitty part of being a parent – the tantrum.
And for the most part we do okay.
And then there are nights like tonight.
This weekend I had a fantastic weekend with my daughter – we did crafts yesterday morning, had a friend’s birthday party yesterday, she went for a bike ride to the playground last night, this afternoon we had a brilliant and sunny walk through a local street festival filled with lots of treats followed by a two hour nap followed by another party at a friend’s house. A busy weekend and when we both got home today we were tired and when given the choice of more crafts or some TV, I allowed for some screen time – something she is not allowed Monday to Thursday and is reserved as a weekend treat.
Well when it was time to shut the TV off we hit MELTDOWN city. Full on stomping, crossed arms, FUMING mad and then when the STERN voice came out, full on tears, non-stop, for close to half an hour.
I am big on apologies and I don’t rush them, but they need to happen and tonight that took a while. And when it finally came we were able to move forward with the calming down process in the evening.
During the meltdown I made a simple threat of punishment that I didn’t realize would have the impact that it did. In frustration I told her she was going to go straight to bed, no lullabies.
That set her off even more.
My daughter is going to be six in just a couple of months and while tonight it led to tears, I’m happy at how important the consistency of our routine and the sanctity that is our time together, at the end of each day when I sing anywhere from one to five lullabies (depending on how good her negotiating skills are in the moment), is to her.
After she apologized – the most sincere and heartfelt thing you’ve ever seen – I caved and we snuggled and I sang her the lullabye I’ve been singing to her since she was a newborn, rocking her to sleep in the crook of my arm. It’s one of her favourites and it’s one that I wrote for her… it’s a simple, haunting tune that can be repeated for as long as it takes her to fall asleep.
The music notes to the lullabye will be tattooed on me at some point; I’ve finally decided on something important enough that I would have on me for the rest of my life, and after an evening full of tears and grief, that simple lullabye centred us both, relaxed us both and it let her drift off into a happy sleep where she knows she is loved and cared for.
* * * * *
As evidence by the extremely long lead-in to this post, I’m still working through how to do this parent thing part-time, and sometimes these moments hit me harder than others.
My time with my daughter is the most precious thing I have in the whole world and I want her time with me to be remembered as happy times filled with music, laughter and love.
Our bedtimes are important to me and sometimes, if she’s willing to play along, I record these Bedtime Interviews that I share on my Facebook. Here’s one from last December to sort of show what the last minutes of our days are like…
When we are not interviewing, we read stories and we sing lullabies and one of the lullabies that I have butchered in the past with my daughter is “Goodnight My Angel” by Billy Joel. It’s a beautiful song that I have only half-remembered the lyrics to and have tried to sing to my daughter on occasion. As one of the goals of this website is to help me discover new things about the music that has made up my life until now, I thought I’d do a bit of research around the song.
There isn’t much to tell that I didn’t already know; this is a song that Billy Joel wrote for his young daughter and was originally intended to be a prelude to the title track on “River Of Dreams“, his final album, but revisiting the lyrics of this song tonight has resonated with me more deeply than upon any other listening.
Have a listen to this hauntingly beautiful tune…
One thing I didn’t know was that this song was turned a book. I’ll be picking this up soon…
I’m going to learn these lyrics properly and work them into our bedtime lullabies often enough so that we get to the point where she can whisper along to my singing.
I want my daughter to know that, no matter what happens to her in life, her daddy will always be there at the end of the day and if he’s not physically there, he will always be in her heart.
I want my daughter to know that, above anything else in this world, I am working SO hard to give her the most magical life I can.
My time with my daughter is the most precious thing I have in the whole world and I want her to finish more of her days thinking these thoughts and dreaming happy dreams knowing how important she is to me and how much she is loved.
Goodnight my angel, time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you’ve been asking me
I think you know what I’ve been trying to say
I promised I would never leave you
Then you should always know
Wherever you may go, no matter where you are
I never will be far awayGoodnight my angel, now it’s time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay
And like a boat out on the ocean
I’m rocking you to sleep
The water’s dark and deep, inside this ancient heart
You’ll always be a part of meGoodnight my angel, now it’s time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry, and if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart there will always be a part of me
Someday we’ll all be gone
But lullabies go on and on
They never die
That’s how you and I will be