Unbelievable...

Yes kids, it's really me.  I haven't posted in a LONG time but a recent Huffington Post article made me laugh so hard and remember back to the bad times in my divorce that I had to share it with all of you. 

Here's the link...

Man Buys House Next To Ex-Wife, Erects Middle Finger Statue



Just too good to pass up.

Haven't been keeping up with all your lives, sorry.  Been crazy busy with mine.  Remarried, moved to the suburbs, bought a house and have a new 16 month old son.  Things are good.  And Ex and I are getting along well.  My baby girl still splits her time with her mom and me 50/50 but it's a short drive from Manhattan to Westchester.  Everyone is happy and getting along ok.  Amazing what time and a little letting go will do.

Anyhow, hope all of you are well.  Maybe I'll post again soon.  

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice...

Ever since she turned 3, my little M has been obsessed with the differences between boys and girls. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that until she was able to safely self entertain, both her mother and I made her sit in the bathroom with us while we showered. It seemed like the best way to keep an eye on her and to not have to skip showers while she was awake. You busy single parents of toddlers know what I mean.

When she learned the name of Daddy's "boy parts" she thought that was the funniest word she ever heard: "You have a PENIS???!!! That's silly!"
A couple months ago, we were coming down the elevator on a busy Saturday morning. Our building at the time was huge. It has 865 apartments filled with one of two types of residents: families with young kids like us, or retirees who have been living in the building for YEARS who haven't left because of rent control. As we got on the elevator, M looked in the mirror at her hair. Daddy had made his best attempt at a pony tail (I've actually gotten quite good at it). She gave herself the once over and the conversation ensued:

"Look Daddy! I have girl hair!"

"Yes you do baby. You have beautiful long hair" I replied.

"Mommy has girl hair too! Daddy? You have girl hair?"

"No baby, Daddy has short boy hair"

"Oh" she said with thoughtful face. Just then, the elevator doors opened to the lobby. It was early and for some reason there was a large group of little old ladies milling around our cavernous lobby that coincidentally has a HUGE echo. M's face lit up and she asked loudly with a wry smile,

"Daddy, you have a PENIS?" ALL heads turned in our direction!

"That's right baby. Boys have a penis" I replied quietly. We exited the elevator and she continued...

"Daddy, do I have a PENIS???"

"No baby, you have girly parts"

"Oh" she replied with a thoughtful face, almost disappointed. I could see the wheels turning in her pretty little head. I could also see that every grandma in the place was staring either in disbelief! Our favorite doorman Norman, however, was laughing so hard he was about to pee his pants. After a few seconds M's little face lit up...here it comes...

"Daddy?!"

"Yes my love?" as we walked past the little old ladies...

"I want a PENIS! I want a PENIS" she shrieked with delight while jumping up and down holding my hand, "We go to the PENIS STORE and buy one?"

Terror on faces everywhere as Norman doubles over. So for the grandma's I answered, "You know what baby, if you can find a penis store we'll go buy one."

"Ok! Ok!" she squealed.

And with that we went to the playground...leaving behind a lobby full of horrified old ladies and one very amused doorman :)

Now I just need to put together a plan for our new family business! Anyone know a good penis wholesaler?

A Change of Focus

So I've been sporadic as best in my postings for the last few months. Truth be told, I've gotten a bit bored with the whole thing. Not bored with the rest of your lives...I still love reading what's going on with each of you and seeing how your single parenting days are working out. It's just that (hopefully) I seem to be through the "crisis part" of the separation and divorce. Ex and I don't have much contact except for arranging drop off's and pick up's. Honestly, most of that is by design from me: I've realized that the less contact with her, the happier I am. Things still come up occasionally of course, but after having our Child Therapist establish some ground rules for us, we've managed to stay mostly within those lines and when we don't a quick "remember what CT said about..." email seems to do the trick. I'm SO grateful for that.

My major sadness that remains is that Ex still doesn't seem to spend a ton of time with M and M does express this to me. When drop off time comes, M will say things like "Mommy not home, Mommy's at work" or "We're not going to see Mommy, we're going to see (insert Nanny's name here)." This makes me sad but I guess I've realized that there's not much I can do about it. The nanny or babysitter Ex uses is great with M and while I'd MUCH rather have that time with her, arranging switch times around Ex's ever changing schedule is more trouble than it's worth. I have a backlog of nights where I've stepped in to have M and to date, Ex hasn't offered any reasonable nights to make them up; only nights which would make me not see M for longer stretches which I'm not willing to do. So, I continue to play Mr. Mom which I LOVE and M and my relationship just keeps getting better.

So, when I started this blog I did so with the purpose of putting my problems out there and seeing what all of you who have more experience at this than me can do to help. I am SO grateful to all of you who offered support, advice, or just a kind word when I was in the middle of of the muck. Granted, Ex is Ex, so I expect more issues occasionally, but my "toolbox" is more complete now and I've learned mostly how to deal with her. Again, that is with the help of the online single parent community. You guys are AWESOME!!! Kind of like my sobriety program, I think I'm now in a position to help more than "take more" since I've been doing this for a while. I have always found that the most rewarding relationships I get are ones where I'm "on the give more than on the take."

So, in an effort to not let BDC's blog die, the Change of Focus will be this...the subject to whom I am writing is going to be different. As M keeps growing, discovering, and changing, there are SO MANY things that I want her to remember or that I want to remember because they're cute, funny, huge milestones, etc. Why not make BCD's blog FROM Daddy TO my Little M telling her all the great moments and memories that might be forgotten otherwise? When she's older, I can compile them onto a book with pictures so that she can always look back on her childhood from Daddy's eyes.

I'm really excited about this. Nothing I wouldn't do for my little girl...

Apparently Size Matters...

And Disney doesn't know. This is a family resort people...get your minds out of the gutter!!!

M and I did all the Princess lunches and breakfasts we could in order to meet as many characters as possible. She also wanted to meet the Pooh characters and the fairies and was most excited to meet Tinkerbell and Cinderella. At the Norway restaurant at Epcot we met Belle, Sleeping Beauty (aka Aurora), Snow White, and Jasmine! Talk about a score. The big event was dinner with Cinderella and Prince Charming however. They danced for us, took pictures with M, and were very sweet to her. M's favorite out of that group however...Anastasia, one of the evil step-sisters!!! I have no idea why but that's all M could focus on. Granted the actress who played her did a very good job. She took a lot of time with each of the kids and really played up the dumb step-sister thing (apparently Anastasia is the dumb one and Druzilla is the mean one). M loved her red hair too.

When we found out we could meet Tinkerbell, though, M was SO excited. I bought her a Baby Tinkerbell the first day (those Disney guys are genius, a baby doll dressed like TB with a baby blanket). M carried her new baby everywhere. So when we got to Pixie Hollow, M was so excited that she jumped up and down for the entire 30 minute wait. When we got to the door the hostess told us that as soon as we go inside, the fairies will sprinkle fairy dust on us so that we'll shrink down to the size of Tinkerbell so as not to scare her and that as we leave, they'll sprinkle us again so that we grow to normal size. I was very careful to explain this to M several times because of an incident we had with Pooh Bear that I'll explain next...

So, when it came to our turn, we were the first two in line. The hostess opened the velvet rope and M TOOK OFF RUNNING. I mean, fast! Ran after her and got there right as she turned the corner only to see...A LIFE SIZED TINKERBELL, FAWN, and TERRANCE!!! It was like watching a running cat try to change directions on a tile floor...her little legs hit reverse and she practically ran backwards out of the room crying and terrified!!! Poor baby obviously didn't get the fairy dust bit. I caught her and brought her over to TB and her friends, all M would do what cling to me for dear life with her little arms and legs and bury her head in my chest. The pictures are HILARIOUS. Smiling Daddy and Tinkerbell with a look of sheer terror of M's face and she hides in Daddy's armpit. Nice try Disney, but the little kids may not get the fairy dust shrinking bit...

Prior to that we went to a breakfast where Pooh Bear, Tigger, and some of the other characters were. M LOVES Pooh Bear as do I. Reminds me of the nice parts of my childhood. We were sitting at table where the characters were coming up behind us, so M didn't notice when Pooh Bear walked up. And Daddy didn't tell her because he didn't want to ruin the surprise. Here's what I wasn't thinking about...in the books and movies, Pooh Bear is Christopher Robin's pet, right? And only comes up to CR's waist. Given that CR is a little boy, M must have expected PB to be about 2 feet tall. She was SO excited to hug a little bear!!! What walked up, however, was a 6 foot tall bear with a GIANT head. The horror in M's face said it all!!! She jumped across the table into my lap and REFUSED to look at Pooh. We couldn't even get a picture!!!

Moral for Disney on this one: job opportunities for "little people" are limited enough as it is. Think about how many could be employed by making them Disney characters such as Pooh Bear! We could put a serious dent in unemployment. Should someone contact Obama???

Single Single Dads...This is a Must Read!!!

So, M and I are back from Disney. We had SO much fun!!! Each of the last two mornings after she woke up she climbed into my lap and said "Daddy, let's go to Disney today!!!" Guess she liked it. :)

I have a ton of fun stories about M from there which I'll share with everyone throughout the week. Sticking with our single parent focus though, and particularly my single daddy brethren, I thought that today I'd give you one huge observation that I have from our trip:

DISNEY IS THE BEST PLACE IS THE WORLD FOR SINGLE DADDIES TO MEET BEAUTIFUL SINGLE MOMMIES!!!

That's right. Unbelievable!

Now, personally I'm committed to RN at the moment and hope that doesn't change. She gets sweeter by the day and I REALLY like her. We're even Facebook official now! New ground for me...There was therefore no hanky panky for me while M and I where there. I did, however, either strike up or just have random conversations with so many pretty single mommies. Never expected that!

Now, M and I stayed at the most economical Disney (the All Star Resort). Nothing fancy at all. Just basic rooms like a Holiday Inn, but two nice pools, a playground, a food court, and frequent bus transport to and from any of the Disney Parks. And TONS of other kids for M to play with. I figured why spend money on an expensive hotel when we weren't going to be there anyway. That said, I'm assuming most single parents would be on a limited budget so therefore single mommies galore! What was really nice to see was that a lot of them were with their parents. We did eat at a couple of the other "nicer" resorts for Princess Breakfast or Princess Lunch, but honestly, I saw very few singles there and the hotels looked less kid friendly. Great for couples without kids but otherwise who needs it, right?

Fellas, I'm just sayin', if you want to give your kids a GREAT vacation and have the chance to hang out with a bunch of other single parents this is a must do!

Happy July 4th!!!

So, no major new news today so I thought I'd just drop a few lines to let everyone know what's going on.

Most important, M is doing great. Honestly, that kid has a great life whether child of divorce or not. After a week at the beach in SC with my family, she's headed to the beach on Eastern Long Island with her mother today for the long weekend. I won't see her until next Wednesday morning :( but she's going to have fun so I'm happy for her. As soon as she gets to my place Wed, we're hopping on a plane to Disney World for 4 days! She's SO excited to meet Cinderella and all the princesses. We're staying in a hotel on Disney so we don't have to drive and can just catch the shuttles everywhere. Very exciting! She has two more beach vacations coming up this summer as well as a trip to see my family. We're also planning on a trip to Sesame Place (the Sesame Street theme park in PA) later in the summer. It's good to be my M!

M and I are moving in a couple weeks. Only two blocks away so no huge change. Same neighborhood, playground, friends, etc. The big change is that little one gets her own large bedroom and bathroom!!! She's very excited. Her current room is the converted dining room in our one bedroom apt. Decent size for a baby but not big enough for a "big girl." She helped Daddy pick out the design of the room...pink walls, white furniture, yellow floral comforter, fairy princess bathroom, etc. I'm going to be painting and moving a few things this weekend while she's with her mother.

RN and I are doing GREAT! I'm really excited about her. Luckily, after returning a text from CP earlier in the week, I haven't heard back, so it looks like that one is dead. Not that my mind wasn't already made up but I hate to have to make those kinds of choices since I generally don't trust my own judgement. Anyhow, RN and I talk at least once a day and text throughout the day. We're getting together tonight and then again Sunday evening and Monday all day. She works this weekend which is good. Gives me time to do apt stuff. Getting the stomach butterflies with this one...she's super expressive, a total cutie pie, and always seems positive and in a good mood. Monday we're going to the beach for the day. Agreeing with everyone who's left comments, this one may be a keeper :)

Ex has been especially agreeable lately. Maybe she's sick :) Seriously, no issues on a couple months and even some financial relief. Hopefully we're past the ugly part of the divorce and can just get on with co-parenting and our separate lives.

Work is...work. Work to live not live to work I say.

That's all I've got peoples. Enjoy the 4th and if you're watching the fireworks in NYC, look for me and RN in the crowd. We'll be watching.

I'm Tired But It's OK

So, back from a week's vacation in SC with my family. Those of you with whom I'm friends on Facebook have probably seen some of the pictures. I love that week with my family since I don't get to be a part of their daily lives and miss them a lot. M loves it too because she gets to spend time with her Family. Funny, even at 3 1/2, the concept of family isn't lost on her. She loves that she has grandparents, an aunt and uncle, and cousins. She was totally at ease with everyone and really seemed to enjoy herself.

Now back to life as usual, but not quite...my dates with CP (CVS girl) and RN (the woman from the arcade at the beach) happened the week before last. CP is very funny and cute and I had a good time with her. Some cultural difference might make it tough though. She's from Taiwan and while she's been in the States for many years, her family is over there and a lot of the pop culture references I talked about she didn't get. She's a bit older than I thought (31), which is a good thing. Funny thing though, is that I'm actually closer to her mother's age (50) than her age. Doh! We got a good laugh out of that. She's in Turkey for a friend's wedding so I won't be able to see her for a bit...however...

RN and I went out two nights later and had such a great time, we went out again the next night! We spoke and texted continuously during the week I was at the beach and got together again last night and stayed out until 1 AM. For those of you who don't know me, I'm in bed by 10 regardless of who I'm with so this is huge for me. And again, we had such a good time that we're going to see each other again tonight. She's so sweet, very affectionate, has a beautiful smile and giant blue eyes. Total melters for me. And as I said before, she doesn't seem "complicated" by all the money, status, or other distractions of the city. She never even asked me what I did for a living until the 4th or 5th time we talked. That's usually one of the first questions you get in NYC. I mean this in the best way possible, but so far she seems like a very simple family girl. I LOVE that. She's a "good girl" as well in that no rushing into the physical. While one part of me (down below) would LOVE to do that, it never seems to work out. I'm happy she has the smarts (or self control) to take that part slow since I DON'T :)

So it looks like I'll be tired again tomorrow. Oh well. Looks like serious potential with this one. For that, I'll gladly miss out on a few hours of sleep.