I am a divorced father of two. I live in the
City
and they primarily live with their mother in the suburbs. That means that I am out there twice a week doing normal parenting things (school pickup, tae kwon do lessons, bath/book/bed, etc.) as well as moving with them between the City and Suburbs every other weekend.
Since I do not have a home out there, I perform some normal parenting tasks (clothing the children, providing meals, changing diapers, stuff like that) in odd environments. Sometimes we go to Cub Foods to get dinner to have in the car on the way to some event or other. Sometimes we bounce from the library to Target to a restaurant to fill our evenings.
I enjoy it. It’s not a burden or a sob story. It does, however, lead to some odd, “how did I get here” moments.
I had one of those on Halloween morning this year, about 7:30 AM. We started out the day (a Monday) in the city because I was taking the day off work and was participating in their various Halloween parties at school. I was responsible for 50 witches brooms for CXO’s party.
Anyway I wanted to get on the road to beat traffic so I kind of threw them in the car with all our stuff—costumes, party stuff, trick-or-treat pumpkins, etc. I realized I needed to get their costumes on. We stopped off at Walgreens for some last minute stuff and I thought this would be a good place to put their costumes on.
I drove around back and saw that there was a really pretty vista unique to the suburbs: a dry retention pond. It looked like a stage—all scrub grass and oval. I thought it would be a great place to change—somewhat private and picturesque at the same time.
As I helped them don their costumes, and took pictures of my little family, it occurred to me that I had a weird and happy life. That I do.