#explainingtokids

He’s been pretty absent for the last two years, but it’s not what you think. 

Mr. G’s dad has big, long complicated medical issues from a genetic defect. I won’t get into what, because it’s super-specific enough that it is possible he could be identified from them. He’s also used his story to help support non-profits who support people with medical conditions, and the internet being what it is, I think being super-vague is probably for the best. 

The reason I mention it at all is to try and explain a little bit. 

When I write my posts about ‘we did this’ or ‘this is our routine’ and Mr. G’s dad isn’t mentioned, it’s because right now his job isn’t being a dad so much as is it is staying alive. And while he does sometimes push himself to sit on the floor with his kids and read a book or build a tower when he shouldn’t, usually when it’s a bad day he doesn’t get a choice. Just waking up long enough to eat and take his many, many pills will be enough to exhaust him and send him back to sleep. So while he has been living in the same house as us for the last two years, at times it feels like he’s missed huge portions of our lives simply because he hasn’t been able to partake in things. 

It’s definitely added to the stress factor in our lives, and has had it’s consequences on Mr. G’s progress and overall happiness. When mommy and daddy disappear for nearly a week because a hospital stay is involved and things are not looking good, just because he doesn’t understand the why doesn’t mean he doesn’t get that things are off. 

A therapist, though, for Mr. G’s dad made a suggestion, though, and it’s one that I think has helped. We don’t hide things from the kids. When Mr. G’s dad is not doing well, I tell them that. I don’t go into specifics (a bacterial infection on the back of the heart from a contaminated port won’t make much sense to them) but I or their father still make the effort. On bad days at home, he tells them, this is a bad day. This is why it is a bad day (pain, tiredness, etc) and this is what daddy can or can’t do because of the pain, tiredness, etc. And you know, I have truly come to believe that they get it. 

It doesn’t always fix everything. Missy still goes into super-cling mode if I disappear for more than a few days, and Mr. G will begin ‘shutting down’ if his schedule is more than moderately disrupted by his daddy’s illness. And trying to triage who needs my time more in any given moment can be a battle worthy of any Spartan. 

But when Missy, who’s 2 and a half, is told daddy is having a bad day and decides to bring him her blanket and lovey to the couch so he can be ‘comfy’, it’s worth it. And when Mr. G is told daddy is having a bad day and decides to sit with him anyway, sniffing him and being unusually gentle, it melts your heart. Neither of them is particularly verbal, but the level of understanding and compassion they are capable of still blows me away sometimes. 

It’s a level of transparency with our children that I think we are at first entirely against. ‘They’re too young for that!’ ‘You shouldn’t burden them with that!’ ‘Why are you making their lives more difficult than they already are?!’

Because...it’s already making their lives more difficult and they should know why? 

We are actually looking at the ‘home stretch’ for daddy’s current two-year bout of difficulties. If things go according to plan (and to be fair, they almost never do) we could be approaching something that looks like normal if you squirt in three to six months. 

One can only hope :)