Naturally Handicapped

Today is my girls’ birthday. Happy Birthday ladies!! I got up extra early to make them pancakes and prepare their favorite breakfast. They were so happy and their faces were just glowing when they got up to see their favorite breakfast foods in front of them—warm and ready to be eaten. I’m always glad to be able to do these things for my kids. I can feel during these brief moments that I’m doing alright as a single parent. I took cupcakes to both their classes and they were just elated to see me there and have their classmates singing Happy Birthday to them.

As some of you know I’ve worked especially hard at learning to acquire new skills that I did not have prior to Becca’s death—things that I leaned on Becca for, e.g. doing my girls’ hair, doing deep household cleaning, brushing up on my rusty cooking skills, etc. I think I’ve done alright at keeping things together. However one of the things that I have learned during this whole widowed experience is that I am just naturally handicapped with this male brain of mine.

One of the recent experiences that come to mind is my son’s birthday which was last month. Three days before his big 10th birthday party I was having knee surgery. Prior to my knee surgery I wanted to have everything ready. I had vacuumed the whole house. I shampooed the carpets. I polished the kitchen floor and had gotten all my inside cleaning done before I went under the knife. I had the cake ordered. The food was ordered. I had the tables and bounce house/slide confirmed with the party rental place. Invitations were sent out. Other than some minor cleaning outside I was ready…or so I thought.

I had some family come about an hour before the party was scheduled to start to help with last minute preparations. As they were cleaning up outside my daughters were beginning to stir with excitement in anticipation of the kids soon to arrive. That was when my daughter asked the big question, “Where are the decorations? We need a sign that says, ‘Happy Birthday Elijah’, we need balloons, we need pictures on the walls.” Oh man, I hadn’t even thought of decorations. Who thinks of this stuff? …girls do. It’s funny to see some of the age old Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus dichotomies unfold within my home with girls that are so young. I mean I certainly didn’t train them to think of this stuff; half the time it seems like they are so aloof that they don’t even pay attention to what’s going on. However at times like at Elijah’s birthday I am suddenly reminded that despite the fact that they are nurtured one way, their feminine nature seems to come out anyway. I love it!!! Personally I like girly girls. I like the fact that they play in the mud and aren’t afraid to get dirty. Yet at the same time when they are getting ready to see their friend Joey they want to put on their body glitter and lip gloss. It’s just cute.

Another example that I think accentuates the fact that I am naturally disabled due to this male brain of mine would be when I am doing their hair. My girls like for me to do their hair nice. They like it when I do the fancy braids, rollers, curlers, the hair care products, all that stuff. When I actually take the time to do a fancy hairstyle they always want to go and ruin it by shoving in bows and clips and ribbons in their hair. Personally I’m just glad that I conquered the task of getting their hair looking good. Yet to them, a girl just isn’t fully dressed without….accessories. For some reason my brain just stops at getting the hairstyle done. They like the hairstyle but then they have this insatiable need to go put a bow or ribbon or a clip in their hair. It makes me crazy but it makes them happy so I just deal with it.

In further examination of the aforementioned examples I can’t help but think that there most certainly has to be other things that my kids are missing out on by not having a mother in the home. I have done my very best to try and compensate for those things that I can think of. However just like the bows in their hair and the decorations for the parties, there are just some things that I wouldn’t even think to do because my brain doesn’t work that way.

For the most part in this entry I have referenced my girls but I acknowledge also that my son is missing out on that feminine influence as well. In addition to losing his mother he has lost his maternal grandmother (she died a few months after Rebecca). He will likely soon lose one of his maternal great grandmothers soon. His cousin Liz has not been feeling well lately and so there has been this slow ebbing away of female influence over his life since his mother died. I do my best to teach him that we treat our women differently—we treat them special. We have to be gentler with them and talk more kindly because their feelings get hurt quicker.

I have tried to teach my son how to dance with his sisters. My thought was that it would teach him how to hold a lady, be firm yet gentle. I felt that it would teach him to read her body language and also just learn patience. Rebecca and I used to love to dance together (Oh how I miss that!!! I miss holding her and reading her body language. I miss holding her body and knowing exactly how she wanted to be touched. Whew, I’ll stop now). Anyhow, dancing is something we’ve always enjoyed doing as a family.

The bottom line is I just worry about these kids. I worry about the things they miss out on by having a naturally inept father. When I was a flight instructor we used to say that they worst mistakes a pilot can make are the ones they don’t know they made. The thought behind that is that if you know you made a mistake you can correct it and take appropriate actions in you subsequent flights. If you make a mistake and don’t know about it that mistake can lead to larger ones thus compromising the integrity of each flight. Most aviation accidents are not caused by one single mistake but rather a series of poor decisions. Herein lies my worry as a single parent, just that there are things that I am not doing, not for lack of desire, but rather my brain just doesn’t work a certain way.