As I was going through my Flickr page to put together a Facebook montage of Shea pictures for her 15th birthday, I found all these pictures.   This one is the one that made me take a virtual step back. Shea wasn’t even 2 in this picture and this was my second apartment after my separation from their dad.  This was when things were better and I was getting the hang of being a single parent.
It still baffles me that I was able to do it.  I’m not talking about financially, but emotionally.
My girls now are what they were back then, just taller and with car keys.  Kara was always the child that did things her own way, was head strong and stubborn.  She was such a struggle to get to fit into the box I thought she needed to be in.  Alyx was a great kid, but she required a lot of talking. She would ask a million questions and you HAD to answer her.  If she questioned your answer you would have to give her an example, show her that you were right and not until she felt comfortable with it would you be let off the hook.  Alyx was the defender of right and fair.   Then there was Shea.  She was all of Kara and Alyx rolled into one and given this streak of defiance a mile wide.

This picture was taken during one of our dance parties we would have in the living room after a bath.  Kara wouldn’t go to bed with her hair wet so I would have to style it for her.  Shea would sit on the counter and brush her hair into a strange looking mullet.  Alyx would just watch and talk over the hairdryer.   After we were done, we would open the screen door, turn on music from the computer and we would dance around the living room.  Kara’s favorite was “Barbie Girl” and we always had to listen to the songs that Kara wanted to hear or sing.  We listened to a lot of Disney music too.

It was a two bedroom apartment. The master was this enormous room with mirrored closets.  I gave the girls the master bedroom and I took the smaller one.  They would dance in front of it and I could hear them in there giggling about something.   At night I would crawl into my twin size bed and in the morning I would have all three girls piled in the small room on the small bed with me.  I gave up trying to be ‘normal’ and I got rid of the girls bed and got a queen and I would have them all sleep with me in the master bedroom. The small bedroom turned into where they kept their clothes and toys.  Mom’s room was for laughing, telling stories and feeling safe.   We slept there for a year.

They were a handful, all those girls and their moods.  I don’t know how I did it and they turned out so damn wonderful.
I felt like every thing I was doing, I was doing it wrong. The things I felt like I was doing right were not the right things at all.
I was lucky that I had their father in their lives, but that also made my roll harder and more of emotional drain that I would wish on anyone.  It would have been different if we could agree on anything, but we didn’t.    The girls lives were totally different at each house. I was the one that made sure they didn’t get hit by cars, drown and be little spoiled shit heads. He was a little bit more laid back (that’s being nice) and gave them whatever they wanted.  This isn’t a story that hasn’t been told by every single mother/father throughout time.  I would want him to back me up on discipline and he would do the opposite after telling me that he had my back.  This mom was the bad guy. I guess I still am.

There are very little regrets when it comes to how I raised the girls.  They have learned a lot from their time with me.  1. Things don’t always work out as we planned them to, so just roll with the changes and find the fun in the new adventure.  2. Love with all you have, be loved like you deserve to be loved. 3. Be your dorky self, dance in the kitchen, sing loudly in the car, wear mismatched socks and tickle the ones you love until they laugh so hard they cry.  Never be afraid of looking stupid, because it’s in those moments that you find out how much fun life really is.

What I wish I had done differently; I wish I would have known how strong I really was so when someone came into my life that wanted to help me and made it so damn easy that I would have been able to say, “No thanks! I got this!”.    Through that experience I learned a lot too about being a step parent.  He did allow me to love and raise his kids just like I raised my own and because of that I think their life was better. They had 3 sisters who taught them that it was okay to be different.  For those years I was a real step parent and I learned how to give unconditional love.
Things are different now. I don’t talk to anyone from that side and sometimes it feels like it was a waste, all those years.

Shea is 15 now. It’s been 14 years that I have been a ‘single parent’.   I wouldn’t change a thing about how I raised the girls up to this point.