Family

Fatherhood Is Hard Work, And a Heart Job

by Skylar on Jun 27, 2024 category Family

There was a food truck festival in town last weekend. The honey-soaked corn dog was well worth the $9.25. As we were strolling Marlow around, trying to keep her occupied in the aroma-filled heat wave, Kody made an offhand comment about the clothing choice of a teenage girl. I laughed, “That is a very modest look compared to what most teenage girls wear nowadays.” Kody didn’t need to verbalize for me to know that he was envisioning 12 years from now when his little girl would be a teenager. (Oh … the parenting ahead of us!)

Becoming a mom was life-changing. The emotions you feel when you hold that baby in your arms for the first time are almost indescribable. It’s the purest love. We, mamas, are the lucky ones. We have nine months of bonding, whereas the Dad starts that process when the baby is born. Even then, it is an uphill battle for the first six months. If nursing, the Mom provides the food. The familiarity of your heartbeat and voice offers comfort and safety. Marlow looked for me to meet all her essential needs in the scary new world, and I loved being her everything. Still, it caused great sadness when Kody had to offer Marlow up because no matter what he did, she would sometimes not soothe with him.

Kody’s heart has always been full of love and compassion, but it grew twice as big the day he became a Father. I’ve never seen anyone so determined to create a bond with his daughter. I saw the frustration in his eyes after he’d spent an hour rocking her to calm her down, and the second I put a hand on her, she’d immediately stop fussing. He wanted so badly to be Marlow’s safe place. It would have been easy for Kody to say that Marlow would grow out of her neediness for her Mom and would grow to like her Dad. Instead, he was relentless. I would scold him at 4:00 am every morning when he snuck into her bedroom to say goodbye. I would stare at the monitor and pray she would not wake up as he smothered her with kisses. The second he walked in the door after work, his bags and nasty gym socks sat on the floor all night because he became too busy playing on the floor with that little girl. Bathtime is Kody and Marlow’s time! The speaker comes out, and they splash and scrub away the day.

Over the past year, I’ve watched Kody work every day to create a bond with our child. I often hear him say, “I’ve never loved anything like I love this Baby Bug.” He loves her, and she loves him. I know this as a fact.

Dear Husband,

We were in our mid-twenties when my heart was drawn to you. You were carefree, and your eyes were filled with light. I see you now as a man, the weight of responsibility heavy on your shoulders, eyes dimmed with exhaustion. I want to encourage you today—the work you do matters—outside our home, yes, but especially here in our home.
I love watching you play. I listen to the giggles as you hide behind the corner. Marlow’s hands and knees pound on the floor as she speeds to peak around the corner, waiting for you to fly out and tickle her. I love the way you love her. I am thankful she will have an example of a gentle, loving man.

Fatherhood is a hard job and a heart job. It requires strength, gentleness, patience, and time. Dear Husband: I love watching you be a Father.

https://youtu.be/ebB5AuY2sLY

The Significance of Dad

by Skylar on Feb 10, 2024 category Family

I teach a gratitude lesson to my students each year. I usually introduce it around the Holiday season, but I had too much fun teaching PE games in November and December this year. (My teaching partner and I created a new version of Quidditch and The Hunger Games). This last week, I sat my students down in Health Room #2 and pulled up the lecture slides to “The Power of Gratitude.” The closing assignment asks students to write a handwritten letter to someone in their life who has impacted and positively influenced them. I like to call this person ‘their trusted adult.’ I have also written a letter to someone in my life for seven years. This year will be my eighth letter. I told my students I am writing my letter to my Dad this year. I paused as I said this because I was slightly embarrassed that it’s taken me eight years to write a gratitude letter to my Dad. I have started writing the letter but have not finished it. (Maybe I should do that instead of writing this blog post). This gratitude letter to my Dad has proved to be challenging to write, and it’s not because of all the detailed reasons I am grateful for him but because I realized how much I fear losing him.

I have been a Daddy’s Girl for as long as I can remember. I am sure my Mom would confirm this. What does being a Daddy’s Girl mean? It is so much more than being a daughter to a Dad. I have watched my brother and his relationship with his oldest, Vivianne. I observe Kody and Marlow together. Marlow Girl loses her balance from excitement when Kody opens the front door, and her eyes follow him around the room until he gives her attention. The common factor I observe is that the daughter often looks to the Dad for acceptance, attention, and affirmation. I should clarify that us daughters need our Mom, too. We look to our Mom for safety and security. That’s a different Blog Post, though.

I didn’t realize that I sought out the three A’s from my Dad until I started drafting the gratitude letter. I remembered personal, detailed moments forever ingrained in my memory. I recalled the countless times in my teenage and early adult years when my Dad rescued me from heartbreak or opened up his home many times when I was temporarily homeless; however, some more recent memories sparked my gratitude letter.

It is customary for a man to ask the Father if he can marry his daughter. Kody asked my Dad. I am not even sure how that conversation went. Considering I am married, my Dad must have given his blessing. Additionally, it is common for the Dad to walk his daughter down the aisle during the wedding ceremony. What is the significance of this event? I looked it up. “Fathers walking their daughter down the aisle and giving their daughter, the bride, away represents a transfer of ownership from the father to her new husband.” It was interesting when family and friends found out Kody, and I went to the courthouse to get married and realized that we had no plans for a future ceremony or reception. Many individuals asked me about the absent act of my Father walking me down the aisle. My Dad and I had many conversations about Kody and I getting married and the lack of the traditional Father/Daughter walk and dance. What mattered to me was that my Dad trusts Kody and views him as genuine and honest. My Dad and I talked about what marriage symbolized. My point is that we talked about marriage, not a wedding, which made the conversations special. I could be wrong by assuming, but I don’t believe I screwed my Dad over by choosing not to have a wedding. Instead, I included him in my bundled emotions of marriage. I valued his opinions, advice, and approval of my marriage with Kody.

This past year, I became a parent. I hope to be half the parent that my Mom and Dad were for me. Over the past eight months of motherhood, there have been many tears of frustration and joy. It happens that in the times I have spent with my Dad since becoming a parent, Marlow was doing Marlow things; she caught her first cold while we were staying with my Dad in September, had a cold/flu when we met in Missoula for a Griz game, and was trying to cut some teeth during Christmas. My Dad coined Marlow with the nickname Nervous Nelly – the girl who never sits still. Marlow Girl is always up to something. She’s never been simple. Anyway, as usual, my Dad hugged me when we were parting ways after Christmas dinner. He said, “You are a good Mom. I am proud of you.” I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that from my Dad until after he said it.

I reflect, and my mind swirls with remembrances of significant and simple moments. I will cherish these flashes of memories that fill my heart with gratitude. I have realized that putting all my appreciation in one gratitude letter is impossible. Simply put, I am blessed to have memories and fortunate to continue making memories to treasure.

I thank all the devoted Dads out there. I thank you for your love, patience, and sacrifice. It can’t be an easy road to raise a daughter in today’s world, but eventually, we ladies grow up and realize the significance you had on our development and character.

This year, I am grateful that the lesson on the power of gratitude allowed me to reflect and recognize how blessed I am to have a Dad who always answers his phone, hugs me goodbye, and says I Love You at the end of each conversation.

The Pieces to the Puzzle Shifted

by Skylar on Jan 14, 2024 category Family

My childhood best friend texted me in November and asked, “How have you been doing balancing work, mothering, Wifing? How’s your pelvic floor?”

I responded, “I think I’d be lying if I said it’s been all going well.” And then I unloaded.

I feel guilty when I unload. It feels like complaining. I look at my life with Kody and Marlow; this is all I have ever wished for. I have a healthy child and a husband who loves me on my bad days. Looking at the big picture, I honestly couldn’t ask for more.

As I was trying to find a way to respond with honesty to my best friend, I found it easiest to describe life as a puzzle. In my late twenties, I had figured out my priorities. I knew how to place my relationships, health, work balance, and social life into my puzzle. I knew which piece was the biggest and which piece I put first.

In June 2023, my puzzle gained a new piece. It is a vast, precious piece I placed right in the center.

After describing this silly puzzle, I realized that I was talking about something ubiquitous that comes with parenthood: identity shifts. Everyone tells you what to pack in your hospital bag and the ‘must have’ registry items, but there aren’t any conversations about managing the emotional and mental shifts that happen when you become a Mom (or Dad).

Out of curiosity (mostly frustration) about my recent irritability and temperament, I started poking around and reading literature on the subject. Multiple articles used the term “matrescence”, the process of becoming a mother. The term was coined in 1973 and encompasses the hormonal, emotional, physical, and mental changes that happen when you have a baby. The whole concept reminded me of adolescence. The awkward teenage years when you felt like you didn’t know who you were or what you wanted and lacked any self-confidence.

I started to reflect (and I’m still in the process). I am realizing that the things that used to fulfill me no longer do the trick. Or at least, those puzzle pieces have shrunk and are no longer the first pieces I gravitate towards.

I understood that having a child was a significant life transition, but I did not prepare myself for the major shift in identity that I would undergo. To be blunt, I am still working through the reflective process. I lost touch with my identity, the core of who I am, and that has been earth-shattering. When you don’t know who you are, you sometimes feel like nobody at all. Currently, I am reflecting on who I am NOW. Not who I think I should be, who I was, or who I will be.

I am learning to embrace this new identity and love it for what it is. Having patience is a virtue, but definitely not my forte. My hope is that new parents (and I consider Dads, too) realize that they are not alone in feeling lost and frustrated in the world of parenthood. You went through a big life event. There is no timeline for having things figured out.

For me, this means allowing who I am and what I want to change. I can only trust that I am doing what is best for my family in the phase that we are in right now. This is my season of surrender, being in the moment, going with the flow, letting life be messy at times, and embracing every inch of that. I know my other seasons are coming, but I will bask in this one and give it my whole heart right now.

My puzzle is the same size, but new pieces have been added; some have grown, and others have shrunk. I will continue to shuffle and resize the pieces as time evolves. My puzzle may look slightly different now than it did in my twenties, and that’s okay. It’s not better or worse. It’s just different, and it includes a Marlow Girl!