The Albright Family
(Reuben, 21, Philomena, 23, Nerissa, 5, Romulus, 5)
Narrated by Isolde
Hope and I have been living in our new apartment for nearly a year now. It was strange getting used to being just the two of us but I am loving it. Hope's early years were so busy with me being in high school and college and doing homework all the time that I'm making a point to spend as much of my free time as possible with her. We don't have much right now, being a single parent is expensive and Reuben isn't around much, but we make do with what we have. And we always make sure to have plenty of books around. At eight Hope is reading well, but I still like to take the time to read her a story every now and then.
She has a nanny that watches her after school and they get along great. I'm so happy to have people around that love to spend time with her. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't been able to find someone I trusted to babysit.
It does get pretty quiet, though, at times so I've gotten into the habit of inviting friends over often. Usually it's my best friend, Philomena. Her and I were housemates in family housing back at college. Her two kids, Nerissa and Romulus, are 5 and get along great with Hope.
They're also pretty attached to me.
My one concern is that Hope always gets so wound up around them. She yells inside, runs around like a maniac, and generally gets into a lot more mischief than she usually does. I don't blame it on the twins, they're little still, but they have more energy than I could handle on my own.
I've also had a few other friends from the group of friends Philomena and I were part of, Rupert and Arsenio. It's always nice to catch up with the guys and see what's going on in their lives and Hope adores Arsenio. She loves that he'll sit right down and plays dolls with her.
Rupert and his girlfriend, Concordia are getting serious. They have a place together and are trying out the whole "domestic couple" thing. I'm not sure I could do that if I were them at this point in my life.
I mean, I want a long term relationship, I'd love a boyfriend who lived with me and wanted to help raise my daughter, but I'm kind of stuck on Reuben. He's a great guy. I love when he comes and visits for the weekend and our little family is together, but I'm not sure how much longer we can keep this up. I'm feeling more and more comfortable being away from him. I'm concerned we're drifting apart and he has another year of schooling to complete.
I don't know, I guess I'm going to just focus on Hope and hope that Reuben and I work things out soon, either way. This past year has been great for the two of us. She's doing great in school.
We're spending lots of time outside playing.
We eat dinner together every night.
And she asks me random questions like, "How come we don't live at school anymore?" and "Can we buy a Toy Store?" It's fun seeing her mind develop more complex reasoning when I explain the answers to these sorts of things.
And, of course, the best time is always when she is snuggled into her bed for the night.
Wow, Reuben must have been really young when Hope was born! Fatherhood is a pretty big thing to take on at such a young age. It'll be interesting to see how Isolde and Reuben go in the future, if they stay together.
ReplyDeleteYes, he was technically 13 but I hadn't kept track of their ages at the time so I didn't realize it until a couple months later when I looked at how many days into being a teen he was. Now I'm paying more attention and double checking ages when I notice ACR trying something. I have another woman, Elisabet Miller, who had a similar issue. She turned out to have been 14 when her daughter was born once I took note of her age, but luckily that one isn't as noticeable now that she is 30 and her daughter lives with the ex-girlfriend (who lucked out and was 21, which starts a whole new set of questions).
DeleteBut yes, we'll see a bit more of Reuben shortly in the college updates. I think I'm going to have him take Hope for a few hours and see how things go. He's never had actually her on his own yet, Isolde has always been around, so it should be interesting(although for the story's sake, since she's already 8 years old, I highly doubt that would be the case and will have to rewrite history so he has had some sort of regular visitation with her).
Thanks for reading and commenting!