Experiencing the Trials and Tribulations of being a Single Father One Day at a Time
One day when my daughters and I were making sock puppets, Elaina very casually asked me to make her a puppet theater. She wanted it to be pink and purple, with pink curtains. Challenge accepted. While I am not much of a DIY person, this seemed like something fun that we could all do together as a family.
There comes a time that when your little one grows up and finally leaves the nest. But that will not be for another 13 years. Elaina completed her Pre-Kindergarten class and had her graduation ceremony before she headed out to San Antonio, TX for the summer. While it was just one of the many graduation or promotion ceremonies that she is likely that have over the next two decades, it still meant a lot to both of us.
Anyone that refers to themselves as a nerd knows that there are many tiers of nerdom. For instance, liking Star Wars may seem a little nerdy, but since it has become pretty mainstream, it is certainly a low-threat. Liking Star Trek though, means that you are delving further down the rabbit hole. Everyone has a different scale too, one that likely includes less mainstream board games (check), Dungeons & Dragons (check), and even miniatures for wargaming that you painted yourself (*hangs head*… check). Of all the possible tiers for me, Live-Action Roleplaying (in tandem with cosplay) is my red line (for some it is Star Trek, others Dungeons & Dungeons, while some have nothing that is “too far”). Having said that up front though, I always aim to be a good friend first. And when my friend Steve invited my daughters and I to join him and the local Amtgard chapter at Veterans Memorial Park in Sierra Vista, we would not have missed it for the world.
Whether it was for pure survival skills or because we were letting the pools go to waste at Walt Disney World, it was only a matter of time until I put the girls in swim lessons. Their mother also likes to take them to Great Wolf Lodge and they can only wear floaties for so long. While this class only lasted for two months, it was an excellent introduction into the wonderful world of swimming.
So with less than a month’s notice, the Army tagged me to attend a joint military exercise at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA. Since this was our last duty station, it would be nice to visit some of the restaurants, coffee shops, and game stores that I use to frequent. The bad news is that not only was I going to miss my girls for three weeks (our parenting plan states that they will go to their mother’s location if I have to go on a temporary duty assignment longer than two weeks), but I was not going to be able to spend Easter with them. Since adjusting to change is no longer a serious problem for us, we simply moved our Easter celebration up a week.
So if you have not figured this out by now, my girls love to dress up. And not just like princesses. They like to come prepared for every possible situation. Given that April is Month of the Military Child on post and that every day promoted different activities, this was the perfect opportunity for them to dress up (“fabulously,” as Elaina puts it) for every day that offered a unique outfit. This became a great family activity every morning by looking at the calendar then going through their closets (and sometimes their playroom) to properly dress for the occasion.
So we are a unabashed Star Wars family. I play a Star Wars tabletop miniatures game. Elaina is a huge fan of Rey from the sequel trilogy and continues to ask me when she is getting a lightsaber (Me: “You got one at Disney World.” Her: “No, Dad, a real one.”). And Gabriella enjoys learning her colors, letters, and numbers from Star Wars children’s books, because, why not? Because of this and being a relatively good baker, it was no shocker that my friend’s wife contacted me about a making a Star Wars cake and surprising him with it during his party. But of course, I cannot do anything in our house without being interrupted by two wonderful little girls, so I just let them in on the baking fun. So here goes the Calkins Family’s attempt to bake our very own Death Star.
I have always been an active parent in my girls’ lives, and over the years through experience, I have acquired the skills needed to be an even better father. Changing diapers and potty-training were easy (but thank God those stages are over). Learning what colors and patterns match was a chore, but I eventually mastered it, with one of Gabriella’s teachers telling me last week that she never looks like “Dad dressed her.” And cooking quality meals… I have been able to do that since I was ten, so no trouble there (Note: Getting my youngest to eat them is a completely different story though). But once it was just me and them, there were only two things that I was seriously concerned about. One of them I will have to deal with in about seven years… and the other is doing their hair.
Greetings! As you may have noticed, I have not written anything in almost a month. While the reports of my writer’s block have been greatly exaggerated, this has just been a very (unexpectedly) busy month for my family. It all started a few months ago when I got selected for promotion, but did not really kick in until last month when I got accepted into the next level of the military’s education system. The program, named Intermediate Level Education (Distance Learning, for me), is 18 months of classes, including numerous tests and papers. As if that was not taking up enough of my time, I got selected to move to a new position, one that will set me up for greater success and mobility within the Army. This is all great, do not get me wrong, but it also means that I have to study up on all the requirements and responsibilities of this new job, on top of the graduate-level classes I am already taking. The last bit that was thrown onto my plate was that I have to support a training exercise… in Washington state. Which means that, according to our parenting plan, the girls have to go back to Texas with their mother for a few weeks… ending only two weeks before they go back there for over two months. Needless to say, I have been extremely busy and am about to really miss my girls for almost three months. While I am certainly going to get back to writing, I just wanted to give a brief update that even though we have still been going on our adventures, writing about them has unfortunately taken a back seat to increase in workload. In essence, I have only had to sacrifice my personal time to ensure than my family is taken care of, which I think is the right answer. I will try to get a real post out as soon as I get some free time, but at least wanted to give everyone an update on why all the articles that I have been planning have not been forthcoming. Thanks for understanding.
Thanks for checking in on us.
Cheers!
While our time visiting the Walt Disney World (WDW) parks was over, we still had a half-day at the resort and then the flight home. As I stated before, I wish I had planned for a day in the middle of our vacation to just enjoy the resort, so we spent the last day at WDW trying to squeeze in as much fun as possible. While tired yet happy, we just did not want our vacation to end until we arrived back at our house.
Adventures in Single Dadding 