The First Visitation

This past weekend marked the very first weekend visitation I had with my girls.  Since the wife (or the ex…or soon to be ex?  I’ve seen people use the abbreviation of SBTX but I don’t care for it…I need a unique reference to my ex…some heavy thought will be given to this topic).  Anyway since SHE moved out last week, we started on the documented procedures set forth in our settlement agreement with visitation, child support and all that.  I have the monthly amount worked out for child support and I created a Google calendar for the visitation schedule straight through until they both turn 18.  This way we both know the schedule and can make and document adjustments as needed.  My hope is to never have to actually look at the settlement agreement again.  We are both adults and should be able to work out whatever we need to work out.  If we can’t, then we’ll pull out the agreement and if that doesn’t settle it, I guess we pull out the lawyers.

Normally, I will get the girls starting on Friday afternoon through Sunday at 6 pm but I kept them over Sunday night this past weekend.  Like I said, my ex and I are adults and we’re okay with adjustments…especially when those adjustments mean I get the girls an extra night! 

In some ways, that first weekend almost didn’t count because I was still at our old house which was mostly empty since the Ex left.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I had nothing but three people’s worth of stuff out of a house that held four makes for a mostly empty house.  The only room that was pretty much untouched was my office.  Still, I had a couch, the big TV, dining room furniture, a bed and dresser.  What else did I need?  Well, turns out an inflatable bed was necessary for the girls to sleep on.  They’ll have their own beds in my new house but for this weekend, the girls slept in the middle of the living room on an air mattress (a big, queen sized one).  They loved it and after they were asleep, I went up to my room.  They slept through the night without any problems.  I was expecting some crying in the middle of the night but, for the most part, my girls are troopers or just heavy sleepers. 

Friday night was spent going to the grocery store and getting supplies for a movie night.  I didn’t have a TiVo/cable box due to a mix up in the moving but I did have a PS3 console so I could stream Netflix through it (this will be a blog topic coming soon).  We set up the living room to be as comfortable as possible and the girls fell asleep watching Stuart Little.  As I got up to go to bed, I discovered that the couch I was going to use in my new house was not so great for my back.  It was the same couch I had before I got married and either it got old or I did.  Either way, a new couch was needed.  Possibly an orthopedic one if they happen to make such a thing.

Saturday morning was spent getting the house cleaned in case anyone wanted to come see it.  It was up for sale although the only way you can tell is by the sign in the front yard, not the steady stream of people looking at it (fail). My Ex and her mom came over to help with the cleaning while the girls played.  Once we were done and I took a shower, the girls and I headed out to lunch and then a movie (Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days).  We played a couple games in the arcade at the movie theater and had a good time.  My girls love to go to the movies, which is great because I do too.

Afterwards, we did what all kids love to do, furniture shopping!  Since I knew their attention spans were limited, I grabbed a salesperson and had her walk me through all of their couches at a Usain Bolt-type pace.  Luckily there was a special event going on in the store which included a guy playing piano for the customers.  The girls hung around him, asking a million questions and did a little dancing to the songs he was playing.  I felt sorry for the piano player but his loss was my gain. They were occupied.  In about 15 minutes, I narrowed my choices down to two couches and ten minutes later, I was out the door with a receipt for my new couch to be delivered on the Wednesday after I moved in. It felt good to get that done as quickly and as efficiently as I did.  Maybe I should take the girls with me every time I go furniture shopping? Hmmm…probably not.

It rained when we got home, so Saturday evening was dinner, some game playing on the PS3, and another movie (the Eddie Murphy version of Dr. Doolittle).  Sunday morning was a bit lazy as it looked like rain…a little TV watching, a little breakfast, some blog writing, and a round or two of the card game War with my oldest (she loves the game).  Then it was off to run some errands.  The list of things I needed for my new house was growing.  With the Ex and all her stuff out, I could more easily see what I needed.  When I was at my niece’s wedding, my family threw me a Divorce Shower just like the one I talked about in Bed, Bath and Bothered, so I had a handful of Target gift cards to use. 

Once that was done, we went back home just in time for a terrific storm to hit.  It got so bad; we went down into the basement.  My oldest daughter is petrified of storms while my youngest would probably go do cartwheels in them if I let her (I didn’t).  When it finally blew over, we came up from the basement and checked the outside.  A tree blew over and another tree shed a rather large branch…all missed the house, thank goodness. 

I don’t know if it was the storm or just being over-tired, but the girls woke up in the middle of the night screaming so they came up and slept with me…which was fine. Usually I don’t like it because they sleep in such awkward positions (as discussed in Making the Spare Bedroom Your Bedroom, Spare) but since we were down one person in the bed (re: the Ex), it wasn’t bad at all.  In fact, it was nice. 

So nice that when the morning came and I took them to my soon to be ex-mother-in-law’s house, I was sad.  I knew it would be two weeks before I could enjoy them staying the night again and the reality of the situation sunk in. That night found me sitting in the middle of that empty house wondering what went wrong once again as a depression storm took down my relatively sane mood much like the rain storm took down the tree in my backyard. 

I took some deep breaths and tried to get past it because that’s all I can really do.  In Parents Inc., I wondered what type of dad I would be now and how I would handle my time with my girls when I had them.  I’m still not sure I have that answer but I think it’s something close to what we did this weekend.  Activities we can do together but nothing too spectacular.  Just spending time with them and giving them as much attention as I can. 

It wasn’t like it was all butterflies and rainbows while they were here.  They’re still children and children can be a bit frustrating at times but that frustration goes away quickly when you know there’s an even bigger frustration just waiting for you when they leave:  The frustration of being alone.

Next time:  The big move!