This week is my second week of summer vacation, so you would expect with all that extra time I would be spending more hours catching up with my friends on OH.  Unfortunately my "free time" was largely not my own last week, as my dad and his "girlfriend" came from Pennsylvania for about 6 days of a visit.  My two sisters were unable to get time off of work for the visit (lucky them) so I was left playing activities director and maid for my dad. 

We all know why he came to Wisconsin.  In the years (has it really been 14 years...) since my dad left us, until my nephew Sam was born 3 years ago, my dad made a total of about 4 trips to Wisconsin.  So that's 4 trips in roughly 11 years and at least one of those trips was made only after he was bribed by my mom.  Since Sam has been born my dad has made about 2-3 trips a year.  So let's not get confused about where his priorities and motivations are.  

Whenever my dad visits I bounce back between outrage, sympathy, and sometimes I even have a bit of fun.  But mostly it is outrage.  My dad has no problem watching me do everything from making every meal, to cleaning up completely after every meal, to feeding / dressing / washing / toilet training the baby, to carrying everything.  He could help.  Heck, I would settle for him insincerely offering to help.

And let's not forget our conversation on my birthday in April.  I don't remember if I mentioned it, I'm sure I did, but just in case, my dad called me on the morning of my birthday, but since I was in class I didn't answer it so it went to voice mail.  On my voice mail he leaves this message - word for word "Hi Amy, I just wanted to call and say Happy Birthday....and this is really hard for me to say, but I don't think I want to talk to you or your sisters again.  Just don't call anymore.  I don't want to talk to you anymore...Well, have a happy birthday.  Bye."  Nice.  I was listening to that message as I walked into the Student Center to treat myself to a birthday macciato, and I literally laughed out loud like a crazy person.  "Happy birthday - I don't want to talk to you ever again - but have a happy birthday".  It was funny.  Right?

Of course we did talk again.  Our next conversation ended when he told me that I was a bad person, he was ashamed of me and that I should go to hell.  Oh, but not until after he told me that he had cheated on his girlfriend because she was, and I quote "so mean."  This is the girlfriend who's life he ruined because he took advantage of her and RAPED her when she was a child.  Then he cut her off from her family and turned her into a liar because no one could know about their "relationship".  This is the same girlfriend who maxed out her credit cards to bail his butt out of jail when he got arrested here in Wisconsin back in December. If he did all of that to me and then cheated on me on top of it all I might get a little "mean" too.    

But I digress, my dad really does well with Sam when it is convenient for him, and even occasionally when it isn't.  My dad had Sam help him build a big frame for a swing set in my mom's back yard and Sam thought that was just about the coolest thing ever.  Sam got to use power tools (under close supervision and with lots of hands on assistance) and then my dad gave Sam a hammer and let Sam go nuts hammering on pieces of wood and whatever else Sam could get his hammer on.  Sam got a plastic black and Decker tool set for his birthday from some of his daycare friends, and he wore his tool belt and hard hat to match my dad while he ran around measuring things (like my head and my foot) with his little plastic tape measure.  It was cute...another male figure in Sam's life who will walk in and out as it suits them.  Awesome.

If you are a dad or if you are someone considering being a dad any time in the future...don't walk out on your kids.  Everyone can pretend all day long that it is okay and you can tell yourself over and over that your kids really aren't being damaged, but it's not and they are.  I don't care how cordial your custody arrangement is or how faithful you are with child support and birthday cards, when you leave your kids they don't forget it.  Once you leave, creating a single-parent home, from then on all anyone can do is "the best that they can given the situation".  Not "the best", just "the best they can given the situation".  Leaving condemns a child to financial hardship, bouncing back and fourth between parents, insecurity, conflicting emotions, disruption and in their future family they will not have a clue as to what a dad looks like.  The best thing you can do as a father is to commit to loving your child's mother.  That commitment isn't for the sake of you or the child's mother, it is for the child who deserves to grow up in an intact home with the security of two parents.

I'm 22.  I've been the child of a single parent since I was 8.  It took me until I was 17-18 to realize that my dad was never going to come back and be the dad he could have been, or the dad that I deserved.  And it still kills me when he almost acts like a dad for a little while only to leave once more.  It's like being abandoned again and again.  And frankly, I think I've adapted pretty well all things considered.  My intention when I sat down to write an update for OH was not to preach about the importance of fatherhood, but here we are.  If you don't think you can commit to loving your child's mother for the rest of your life, then you can't handle being a dad.  It takes loving others more than you love yourself and going outside of yourself and placing the needs of your family above your own no matter how inconvenient.  And if you can't do that you don't deserve to be a parent.  When you can't hack it, the destruction you leave affects lives that are not yours to destroy.  

All that to say - I was kind of cranky last week and needed the weekend to recover.  Ask Kyle.  Kyle puts up with me well.  I went all week dealing with other people's disrespect and complete lack of curtisey for the most part.  But on the way back to our apartment Kyle said one not-so-thoughtful thing (or at least I took it as not-so-thoughtful) and I freaked out.  He recognized what happened and was understanding about it when I was apologetic later.  I am lucky to have him.  

   

I mentioned a couple days ago that Oprah was going to air a show about teens and WLS.  When i read the preview on Oprah's website I didn't recognize it, but I watched the show yesterday and I guess I have seen it before.  She has done other shows that are either entirely about WLS and related issues, or shows that mention WLS.  Every time I have seen the shows about or touching on WLS Oprah goes on to explain gastric bypass as changing the size of the stomach from the size of a melon to the size of a walnut.  She also mentions that the new stomach can hold only 6 grapes.  It is a misleading and ridiculous statement, but because Oprah said it, it must be gospel.

Obviously, if I swallowed 6 grapes whole that would be all I could put in my pouch at a serving, but I think the same would be true of a person who hasn't undergone any type of WLS.  However, it is my impression that most people chew their grapes before swallowing them, and when grapes are chewed they take up a lot less room.  It follows then that I could eat far more than 6 grapes if I chewed them, the way most people chew their grapes before swallowing them.  I hate that Oprah viewers may be walking around thinking that a post-op has to somehow survive and be healthy on 6 grapes per meal because of Oprah's misleading, oft repeated statement.   

So, the point of this story, I sat down last night, well after the show aired, with a bag of red grapes and a witness (feel sorry for my husband who made the mistake of marrying me and therefore becoming subject to my unyeilding need to make a point).  I counted out five piles of 10 grapes each, figuring I could comfortably eat between 30-50 grapes in 10 minutes.  I set the time limit to 10 minutes because after that it could be construed as grazing, but 10 minutes also meant I didn't have to just shovel 50 grapes in my mouth in 3 minutes and end up sick because I ate too much before my brain got the signal that I was full.  And with my husband watching the clock and standing by to count the grapes consumed, I started popping grapes one by one.  

At 8 minutes and 37 seconds I stopped, having consumed 38 red grapes.  I wasn't stuffed, but I was at the satiety point I routinely stop at when eating any other time.  I maybe could have eaten a 2-5 more but I had already proven my point (if only to myself and my husband).

So there.  I can eat at least 38 grapes per feeding.