Today is my daughter Lailas' one year birthday. This is the time when I reflect on how much life has changed for me in the past year. Laila, like Katrina pulled the covers off of a lot of stuff. She has made me look at my self as a man. I am a much better person than I ever have been. I have more energy, I am more focused and more honest. Her presence has made me really want to be a better person. It is taking a lot of effort, because I have been such an irresponsible asshole for so long, I have all these bad habits to break, but honestly I feel much better about who I am.
Anyway, Laila is a beautiful child. She recently began walking and she says a few words "Baba", "Dada", "Laila" and of course she has her own baby language. She talks to me a lot, she lets me know whenever she needs something. She has a great face, her expressions are not like anyone elses. I am really excited to hear her start talking using actual language that I can understand. Half of her family speaks Spanish, so I hope that she will retain Spanish a she gets older.
I want her to be a really strong, independent and cultured child. She is already really independent. She will climb around and really work to get what she wants. If she wants to get down from her bed, she will crawl over and hang down until she drops and then go do whatever it is that she feels like she needs to do. It's a great thing to watch this child develop. The hardest thing is not being in the same household with my children.
I know in this modern day, single parenthood is normal. We split custody, pay child support and generally move through life as part time parents. But we pt parents are missing out on a lot. We miss out on learning from our coparents. We miss out on the side that our child shows around the other parent. We miss out on countless small moments of learning and development with our children. I hate that-missing those small moments.
The best I can do is to keep moving forward, trying to be a good guy and maintaining consistent contact with my daughter and her mom.
I have both of my kids part time and it is not a situation that I advise. We are not supposed to visit our children until they leave our homes. We are supposed to go to sleep and wake up to our kids every day.
Next weekend, we are going to do some really fun stuff. I am totally in love with my baby girl.
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Malcom, I am a single parent raising my 2 year old granddaughter. I hear ya man. Enjoy every minute, I sure do. But don't be anxious "for her to start saying more words." Savor every moment as it is; she'll grow faster than you or anyone can keep up with, just savor it. Sounds like your little one is as gifted as mine. Well, we got something to keep us going anyway. Bless ya, Stokey
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