Mutant Shark Boy

One of my sons lost his first baby tooth while playing. It was a clean break, no harm done. One interesting thing we found from the trip to the dentist was that he had another tooth already poking through the gumline - apparently, my son has three pairs of teeth in that location: a baby tooth, an intermediate tooth and the adult tooth. I called him my "mutant" and my spouse called him "shark boy". So he happily ran off and started referring to himself as "Mutant Shark Boy". Later on, he tried to chomp on his brother. *sigh*

As I watched them play, I was struck by how innocently happy they were. There is a possibility that they will be living in a two separate households in the near future if the separation doesn't work and turns into a divorce. But for today, they're chuckling and giggling loudly, playing without a care in the world. Both my spouse and I didn't have very pleasant childhoods; at their age, I lived in constant fear of being beaten and spent most of my time hiding underneath the dining room table. Perhaps in this aspect, my spouse and I have done well in our parenting. At least better than the childhood we had, anyway.

Everyone tells me that kids are resilient, that they can survive separations, divorces, what-have-you. Having said that, I feel I have already failed them, that we, my spouse and I have already failed them. Regardless of where we go from here, they will not have a typical childhood where a happily married Mommy and Daddy are around to take care of them. My spouse and I are united in our resolve to try to stay together as a family under the same roof according to the terms of our yet-to-be-negotiated separation. It's not going to be your typical family...but the children will be loved by both their parents in a warm, safe home. I'm hoping and praying that that is what really counts. After all, my parents stayed married until my dad passed away. That didn't stop me from having a childhood where I was repeatedly beaten daily for no good reason.

I had mentioned in an earlier post that I intend to win any hostile divorce action should it go that way (I hope it doesn't). Using the kids as pawns in a divorce is an ugly thing and from what I understand, a sadly common occurence as well. I (re-)realized today that I can be quite dense at times: after seeing, *really* seeing what is at stake, I'm not so sure that victory-at-any-cost approach is really a viable one for me anymore, at least not if I still intend to be able to look myself in the mirror. Maybe winning that battle carries the price of losing my children and my soul.

I read them "Andrew's Loose Tooth" by Robert Munsch for their bedtime story tonight, substituting our names for the characters in the story. We had a blast - the kids were giggling madly at the end as we sent them off to bed. After my Mutant Shark Boy was asleep tonight, I snuck into his room, reached under his pillow and swapped his tooth for a nice shiny Toonie coin. He snorted softly in his sleep and mumbled something suspiciously like "Cheese!" to me.

Not for all the money in the world would I have missed a moment like that.