Me: Soooo...The social worker who came to see us this morning was [ex-girlfriend's] mother.
G: LOL So they took Miss N away from you then?
A: And dubbed you an unfit manwhore?! lol
Well, things have taken some unexpected turns on the custody front, to say the least. Let's make a very long, nasty story shorter by getting to the point. I now have sole temporary custody of Miss N for the next month. At that time, things will be reassessed and the court will decide whether to make the sole custody permanent, as well as what, if any, type of child support her mom will have to pay (but I'm not holding my breath on that one). As you all well know, I don't deal with change well. Big change, little change, it all rattles me. So you can imagine how I'm coping with something as monumental as this. I mean, it's not like I haven't been a father for years now but it's almost as if I'm seeing everything through brand new eyes. When you co-parent, there's always someone else there to double check your work and bounce big decisions off of, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. In a way, it was a comfort to have that. But now that tie has been severed. And that sucks. But what I'm more concerned about is how Miss N is going to cope with all of this, especially with not seeing her mom much, if at all. From what I hear, she wasn't exactly happy most of the time with her mom these past few months and she has yet to ask about her in the week since everything changed. But I know she will eventually and I have no idea what to say about it. Maybe I'll find the words when the time comes.
Something occurred to me in the midst of all this that I hadn't thought of before. I'm raising a kid. Yes, that is new information for me. Because up to this point I had been raising a baby, then a toddler. But ages 5-9...that's a child. Who will become a tween. And then a teenager (*shudder*). Before becoming a young adult who tells me everything I did wrong in raising her. And finally becoming an adult adult who is in therapy because of everything I did wrong in raising her. I can already see the shrink bills y'all. And while it's easy to freak out about all of that, I felt some sort of calm rush over me. Because methinks I got this. I've had a hand in raising all kinds of kids at all kinds of ages and it's one of the rare things I am truly great at. I never thought that would be the case since I have zero patience, but it has. My niece is 14 and I'm basically a third (much cooler) parent to her. My nephew is 10 and his mother and I essentially raised him for eight of those years while my brother was off doing this and that. And he's good kid. Then of course there's my other niece who is now in her twenties but spent the latter years of her teens with me. All of these kids are amazing in their own ways. Did I make them amazing? Of course not. But I didn't screw them up too badly. I've raised kids and I've loved it and Miss N will hopefully turn out to be a smart wonderful individual who still thinks I'm nifty in fifteen years time. We've come a long way and will no doubt continue to grow as time marches on. I need to stay out of my head and just trust that even though I don't always know what I'm doing, I'm still going to do it to the best of my ability and hope it's the right thing. Raising kids is all about that wing and a prayer business anyway. At the end of the day, I adore this little lady and want nothing but the best for her. We do the best with what we are given. And, as my mom likes to say, children learn what they live. So my goal is to live the way I would want Miss N to someday. And so a new adventure begins...
