Parenting as a Christian Single Dad

For the past few months Madalyn has been more and more scared of the dark or even being in a room by herself. I don't know if it is manipulation or if she really is scared. It has gotten to the point where it is more than an anoyance. I am concerned about this and I am not quite sure I know how to convince her there is nothing to be scared of. Any suggestions?

So here it is Monday night and I "thought" there was a child discipleship class at church. So I make it a point to go, no EXCUSES! Feeling a bit nervous I go in and things are set up for an event, "cool this must be the place." Well to my surprise it was only for Single MOMS and it looked like they were expecting a good turnout. Yes, I felt like an idiot but fortunately there were not many people there yet, it still had about an 1/2 hour to start. This could of really been an embarassing moment and yet it also fits in with the kind of luck I seem to have.

This one I call Purple Forest...

I have been giving this alot of thought lately about going to a new church. I have been finding it really hard to find people to hook up with and do things with. I really like the church I go to but most of my friends are married and older. I found a church, I think, that offers services for people in different stages of their life. For starter a group for single parents on child discipleship. I think I am going to give it a shot because what I am doing is not working and I know God doesn't expect me to be alone all the time.

THE NIPPLE My kid is addicted to the nipple, not moms, MINE. It started a few weeks ago with her asking, "daddy can I touch your nipple?" In my ignorance I said sure and asked why, she poked it and that was pretty much that. But it has gotten worse, her requests are more frequent and she is starting to throw fits when I say NO. It is strange because she just wants to put her finder on it. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and find her doing just that. In fact this morning I had to discipline her for it. I told it has to stop. Am I the only one to encounter this kind of weird stuff? Remember I have no other children and am just winging it here....

With all the news about the financial crisis we are in and no end in sight it is hard to know what to do or what to even expect. I guess I am one of the lucky ones that don't have much to lose. I worry about being able to afford certain things down the road but I will deal with that when and/or if it comes. I am just so disappointed in the system, the government, the banks, etc for allowing this to happen. This has affected the whole world and it seems like it is just getting worse. Where I live this has caused mass lay-offs and small business and local farmers are being denied their typical business loans to keep things going. I am sure I have lost most of my 401K but at this point in my life it wasn't much maybe someday I will break even. All I know is God has a plan and who knows, maybe this is part of the second coming. I just hope we learn something because this is most certainly one for the history books.

What does a perfect evening to me look like....? Well I had a close one recently and this is how it went. The weather was a beautiful fall day, temp in the high 70's. I stopped by the store for some dinner fixings and picked up Madalyn. We got home, fired up the barbeque, and prepared our movie. We ate dinner then had our ice cream and then popcorn while watching our movie for the remainder of the night. We were both fast asleep by 9:30pm. There is nothing better than a nice relaxing evening at home with someone you care about and good food. Okay... Yes, this is how I spent my FRIDAY night.