You are a GOOD Dad...I do know that! They will always remember
the things you did for them when they are older!
You wanna know what really sucks? I was just talking with my oldest kid. She was so proud of teaching her best friends duaghter to call her TiTi (my kids version of Tia, spanish for aunt) so we started talking about when she was a baby.
My oldest kid was born at the end of October. I was laid off, as a heavy equpiment operator, until late may of the following yeah, then only got 40 hours a week. Over that winter, I worked so hard to be the best dad i could, I showed her flash cards, taught her to walk at 8 months, she was talking at 10 months, could carry on a conversation with an adult at 18 months. Life is good!
Then in August, a couple months before she turned 2, we moved to Vermont so i could attend college at a military college (as a civilian). I got a good job on top of being a full time student, mom felt there wasn’t enough income, so she got a job that hardly paid for daycare in a home.
Well, the dad of the home decided that with the extra income, it was time for renovations. This included sanding down doors. The doors he choose to sand had lead paint on them. My oldest has had undiagnosable problems ever since. I don’t want to get into the problems, but bipolar, suicidal tendencies, whatever hell you want a kid to go through, she’s been ther. So have I.
I just told her about her lead exposure, or at least what i’m very confident was lead exposure, and she filppied out. Not in a really bad, violent way, like she used to flip out, thoug. In a dark, introspective kind of way.
Thank God my mom (grammy) is ALWAYS there when this stuff happens.