My Dad

My Dad stopped by the other day. Totally out of the blue, totally a surprise. I guess in other families, family members are always stopping by at each other's houses. We don't. We call and "arrange" a time. Is that weird?? I don't know. It kinda seems weird but it's how we do things.



He was on his way back home after dropping my stepmom off at her daughter's house to babysit for a few days. Dad finds it too boring to be stuck at someone's house for too long and would rather be home. My house is sort of on the way so he thought he'd say hi.



We don't see much of my Dad. It's my fault really and I feel bad about that but there are reasons. Stress is my enemy. I avoid it like the plague. My Dad and Todd in the same house causes me stress so I avoid a situation like that as much as possible. There are no out and out wars(thankful for that) but Todd can be so rude I want to spare my parents from his behaviour. There have been a few things in the past that they did that Todd has taken offense to and while he isn't a jerk to them all the time you just never know when it's going to hit. Many times he can be quite civil but then like I said you never know so better to avoid.

But of course there is guilt in avoidance as well. My Dad loves his grandkids! My kids are his only grandchildren even though Eva has grandchildren from her own children. Sadly he sees Eva's grandchildren way more than he sees his own. Again, my fault. I'm the queen of excuses. Usually I say one of the kids are sick. That's a good one. Okay so maybe they are lies but they are white lies. Lies to help save hurt feelings. Hmmmm I think.

Todd was sleeping when Dad happened by. Good. Stay that way.

Dad and I chit-chatted for awhile. Nothing seriously just how are yous, what's going on yada, yada, yada. Then the conversations turned to mom. It does often. She's been gone for 13 years. I still can't believe it's been that long. I was 21. I never had the chance to ask her all the things about my birth and early years. I was not even close to having kids at that point. I'm sure I could right many many posts on the topic of my mom but for now I'm going to leave it at that.

I don't remember being two but I remember being a child. Obviously how I remember things and how Dad remembers things are different It's all in perception. I thought I was a pretty good. He agreed so I guess I wasn't too far off the mark. Dad said I pretty much raised myself. Wow. Interesting statement. I wouldn't have thought that but thinking back it has a lot of truth to it. I didn't need a lot of discipline. I was very shy and almost always did as I was told. I enjoyed my time alone a lot.

I think I was very different from how my children are now. I know Matthew and I are VERY different. I can hardly believe he is my child at times. Mia is different than Matthew in that she is very shy with strangers and family we don't see a lot. But in her comfort zone she can be just like Matthew. Is that because of nature or nurture? It's probably because they have a lot of their father in them. From what I heard(and I TOTALLY believe it) he was a little hellion. He was a beta child for the proziac era. 'Nuff said