When my phone rang yesterday, with the ring tone I have set for calls from children's father, I knew my daughter had won a small victory, and that my ex is doing some saving face in the process. I think it is a win-win, in everything except how it might play out in court.
I know, more about court is getting old. It is for me, too. This time, I am being dragged back in because somehow the first six times the court made a decision must have just been practice, and not the real thing. It must be my singular definition of "permanent" that is getting in the way.
I am grateful. My children are amazing. They are bright and intelligent and well mannered. They are creative and funny and loving. They make me smile by their presence and their hugs and their unrelenting love. I am thankful because it has taken me until very recently to realize that I can take a lot of the credit for that. They are polite because I taught, and expect from them, manners. They are creative and intelligent because I read to them, and let them explore and encourage them to try things a little outside their reach. They are funny because I show them the less serious sides of the world and pay attention when they show me and tell me the things they create in their hearts and minds. I know them individually and as collaborators. I teach them daily through modeling and touch and smiles that they are loved and how to love in return. This is my definition of permanent. It is who I am, and who they are, and how we are connected in ways that are so far beyond what a stack of sorted and filed papers say. I am their mom.
So why was the sound of the ring tone exciting to me? It means that my daughter gets it. The stuff I have been doing since before my children were born is working. My daughter can make a phone call to her mom on this "odd-year" Thanksgiving, against her dad's wishes, because she knows the connection is there, even when we are not in the room together. She knows that saying hello from 43 miles away is exactly the same as 43 millimeters away. She knows that my heart and her heart are big enough to not only survive, but to thrive. It is permanent. We no longer have a choice, as if we ever did.
How this translates into court is anyone's guess. Oh, I have a good attorney, who cited case law, and pointed out the obvious to a potentially overburdened and feeling-neutral court. I got the fun job (said with as much sarcasm as I can muster) of telling the court why I rock as a mom and why my children's father is all talk and no walk, and the plethora of examples of why his already filed statements to the court are either exaggerations or lies, and not in the "best interests" of the children. It sounded harsh as I wrote it, but truth often is, especially from me, a woman who usually pleases and never takes any credit for a job well done. Touting my own virtues is new. I do it with more frequency these days, but it still leaves me shaky. This time, with a potential change in visitation , and thus my time with my kids on the line, tooting my own horn has become completely necessary. I want it to keep being exactly who I am, and who my kids are in the process.
Here I go with the whiny part though: all this is in the "nothing to lose" category for my children's father. If the courts decide he gets what he asks for, he "wins". If they decide to give me what I asked for in response, everything stays the same, and he"wins". The things he could gain won't happen because of "extra" time spent with the kids. He could have the hugs and the manners and the amazing creative wonderful relationship with them right now if he wanted it. He doesn't. He could see and foster a loving relationship daily with phone calls and emails, and reading to them, and paying attention, and listening. He won't. What he doesn't realize, and never will is that he "wins" nothing. He will not suddenly become a good father because he gets an extra Sunday night. But more that that, (and what I already know is the "real" reason he drags me through this) is that I won't stop being a good mom. I will have the same connection with my children no matter what. He doesn't get that. He never will.
So it was a gift this Thanksgiving in the form a phone call, confirming for me what I already know, that my kids do understand. It is the part where my singular definition of permanent doesn't change, and I get to be thankful that "permanent" for them doesn't change either.
