Day of firsts

[Hillbilly Housewife]

Yesterday was a huge day of firsts.. and I'm still kind of reeling from the nausea.. lol

super long.

During our first date, I’d mentioned to him that I’d been married before, did the marriage/kids thing and it didn’t work out. Move along in the conversation.. anyway a few days later I mention that one of my tattoos is my kids initials… So I mentioned my kids twice now, yes?

Fast forward another week.. and he leaves for nearly 2 weeks to go visit his dad, who’s having major surgery and is hospitalized for a week. We’re chatting with each other over msn and I call him out on some comment he made, and I mention my kids again… and he has a mini freak out – like “what? You have children?!”

It was a long week of talks, after that.. mainly because he had to wrap his head around the fact I already had 3 children, and he didn’t know whether he was willing to 1) not have children of his own, 2) take on MY children as part of his life too, and so on and so on… and since we weren’t yet “serious” at that point, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to pursue our still very new relationship because this now wasn’t part of the life he thought he’d have… and I understood, so we took it a day at a time, to know each other better before making any decisions about whether we were right for each other despite my having kids.

In the long run, he decided that he wasn’t willing to pass up this relationship just because of the expectations he’d convinced himself he had about how his life would be, and decided to “give it a real shot”, because we had a great connection, and he’d get over the potentially not having kids thing.

Here we are several months later, and things are wonderful.

Anyway – yesterday was a day of absolute firsts for both of us… he met my kids, and I met his father.

I asked him last week if he would be up to having breakfast with us on Sunday morning.. and he asked if we could talk about it later, since it was over text.. I said no problem.. later on in the week we were out for dinner, and he just said “so tell me about Sunday”. It kind of threw me for a loop, and so we talked about it.. and he told me he didn’t think he was quite ready to meet them yet.. so we left it at that.

Later that night, he told me he told me he wasn’t ready not because he actually isn’t ready.. but he feels pressured like he has to be loved by them immediately.. and was worried that they wouldn’t.. and that he wouldn’t get along with them.. I told him that when they meet the first time, or even the few times after that, it didn’t have to be in a “mommy’s boyfriend” context, it could just be as them meeting him for who he is, and making up their own minds about him.. as far as him not getting along with them, well, that’s always a risk, even for natural parents.. he was confused by that – so I said that a parent’s love for their child is unconditional, yes, but that doesn’t mean that like with anyone else, a parent doesn’t get fed up with the child and his/her shenanigans now and then.. he felt better after that, because basically what I said was that there shouldn’t be any pressure to impress them, they’ll make up their own mind about him one way or the other, regardless of how he acts or what he says, so he should just be himself.
He totally surprised me yesterday by showing up “to watch the hockey game with us”. The kids took to him right away, wanting to play ridiculous games.. my little one cuddled up to him a little bit, and by the time their dad picked them up, she was telling him all kinds of stories and wanted him to take her fishing and play on the beach and this and that.. it was really cute.. I had my heart in my throat the entire time.

He thinks they’re wonderful.



So, right after.. we left to go out for dinner.. to his father’s friend’s place…which he informed me was where we were going when we left…. Holy stressful!! His father lives on the East Coast and I wasn’t supposed to meet him until July… but he’s in town unexpectedly, and is here for two weeks, one of which has already passed.. so I figured I’d get away with not meeting him just yet because frankly I wasn’t ready to. But.. it went alright I think… his father is just lovely.

[amymom]

it all sounds good. Good Luck with everything.

[moped]

WOW, sounds like a really big day for everyone!!!!!!

[luvbug00]

glad it all went well.