Real Change News | A sheep in wolf’s clothing

July 22, 2009
Vol: 16 No: 23

Community & Editorial

A sheep in wolf’s clothing

by: Alex Landes , Contributing Writer

How I learned to appreciate my ex — er, my daughter’s father

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Four years ago my husband became simply “my daughter’s father.” And with the decision to get divorced, also came the commitment to honor thy father. Thy daughter’s father, that is.

After we had successfully replaced the word “divorce” with “going our separate ways,” my daughter’s father and I spent no more than an hour on asset allocation and a parenting plan. Our daughter would live in two homes, equally. Her best interests would be our guiding factor in all decision making. I even suggested that we should be friends, which was greeted with an unfamiliar snorting laughter. We had a plan and it all sounded good, but certainly one of us was going to screw it up.

I decided it wasn’t going to be me. So, just before that first Halloween, when I moved out of our house, I intentionally chose not to disrupt the layout. I took only my personal belongings and our Christmas ornaments, which I had obsessively collected throughout the previous 10 years. To the naked eye the house looked exactly as it did before I moved out, except my closet was now empty. My daughter’s father was happy to keep all of our things and I was proud of myself for being such a grown up.

We moved back into an apartment where we used to live and that my daughter even remembered, so there was some semblance of normalcy. We settled in, and our days continued much the same, but in two homes and with a certain forward motion that signaled — hope? By Thanksgiving, my daughter’s father was even able to greet me without a “you make me want to hurl” look on his face.

A few weeks later, just before that first Christmas, I decorated our tree one night when my daughter was sleeping, excited to surprise her the next morning. When she awoke, she stumbled out of her bedroom, took one look at the tree and cried, “Mama, you stole Christmas!”

One hour later, we were down the street at Cost Plus waiting for them to open. Three hundred dollars later, my daughter’s father was the lucky recipient of some awfully shiny looking, from all around the world, ornaments. And days later, when I picked her up for our alternating week together, I saw their tree. This Christmas tree, decorated with ornaments bought all on the same day, was possibly more depressing than the empty closet my daughter’s father had to pass every morning on his way to the bathroom.

However, one year later, when we arrived to exchange gifts with my daughter’s father, I noticed their tree had changed. There were more ornaments, popcorn strings and some chili pepper lights that they were able to buy because I was no longer there to complain that they wouldn’t be pretty enough. The tree looked great. And as I passed the empty closet on my way to the bathroom, I noticed that some suits and other less frequently worn clothing had migrated over, possibly giving the rest of my daughter’s father’s clothing room to breathe.

Two years after her parents had gone their separate ways, my daughter had to be “expert of the day” in school and she chose camping. Her dad brought to class their tent, sleeping bags, stove, hotdogs, camping chairs, etc. My daughter insisted that no camping trip was complete without a squirrel onsite. After trying to tape a homemade squirrel tail to her friend Victoria’s gerbil’s bottom, which apparently didn’t work, she told her dad he had to be the squirrel.

So, in front of a class of 26 first graders, my daughter’s father crawled around on all fours with a squirrel tail attached to his ass. On top of that, our daughter made him wear a wolf mask so nobody would recognize him.

“When you camp, there is always a squirrel trying to get into your tent. This is the squirrel,” she proudly announced to the class, “with a wolf mask on, of course.”

That day after school, her dad told me this story with a totally straight face, saying, “Yep, Monday I was pitching my company to Wall Street, and Tuesday I was crawling around on all fours as a squirrel with a wolf mask on.” We both laughed harder than I could have imagined doing with my daughter’s father.

I have a friend who believes that when the sun shines in Seattle, there’s no better place to be. And that for every sunny day here, eight days of bad weather is wiped out. And much like that, because I’m close enough to see it, I know that for every day my daughter’s father is madly in love with her, eight days of bad memories are pushed further into the past.

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