The girls are staying with me tonight, and like always, it comes with mixed feelings.
On one hand, I love them so much it's almost stupid. I want them near me every second. Truly. On the other hand, they are annoying as hell. They whine constantly. They fight constantly, the way a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old do. And they are messy. So messy it drives a rod straight through my head.
But here's the dirty secret.
They only act like this because they feel safe here. They only let themselves whine and fight and fall apart because they're 6 and 3 and, in this apartment, they don't have to pretend to be anything else. At school, at camp, at the doctor's office, everywhere else, they're on their best behavior. Not here. Here they can exhale. Be themselves. Do arts and crafts, sit on my head, it's all the same to them.
And that's the part that gets me.
The exact feeling that drives me batshit crazy is the same feeling that quietly tells me I'm doing an okay job. It's okay to feel overwhelmed by your kids. It's okay to even hate things about it sometimes. That doesn't make you a bad dad. The job isn't to feel calm about it. The job is to keep doing it anyway. Keep grinding, keep playing, keep listening to the whining, and keep just being there, near them, as much as you can.
And then this happens. After the fighting and the chaos, once I'd made their food and finally dropped onto the couch, my oldest looked over at me and lit up: "Dad! Look, I look like you! Same skin, same glasses, same shirt."
She was so proud of it. And just like that, the whining was gone from my head.
That's the stuff you'd miss if you let the hard parts win.
Roman