Donuts, Delays, and the Slow Art of Stepparenting
To get the good donuts, you have to be at the shop early. On a weekend morning earlier this year I was up early to do just that in preparation to host some friends for coffee and donuts for my partner, Kyrie’s, birthday. I leave Kyrie sleeping and ask Sydney if she wants to go with me to pick up donuts. “Yes!” No waking Kyrie up, no making her come with us, just enthusiasm to be on the donut mission with me. I play some of her favorite music, try to solve any random math problems that come my way and hear some commentary that it seems only a car ride can bring out. I can’t help but marvel at the ease of this little donut adventure. It has not always been this way.
When Kyrie and I decided to move in together, Sydney did not necessarily share the same excitement for this step we were taking in our partnership. Sydney tends to guard her vulnerability and quietly observe for extended time before she’ll let you know that she approves, if she does at all. Her priority is that her own pace is honored, her skepticism is taken into account, and that there is minimal fanfare, please. When affection and approval come, they will be subtle. At times it has been tricky for me to gauge how our bond is actually going–I double guess myself and dance awkwardly with my instinct to protect my own vulnerability.
Growing this bond with Sydney has been and is a long, slow burn. To really gain perspective on how the relationship is moving along, I must zoom out from the challenges of day to day moods and developmental stages to see how showing up every day really isn’t just a cliche. Each choice, morning greeting, unanswered question, washed fork, and goodnights wished are building blocks. Some days I can see how far our bond has come and other days my impatience questions if this will ever feel easier. I have not been able to rely on my typical ways of relating–not just because Sydney is a child but because her brain processes very differently from mine. I want to use words to process the world and Sydney would much rather feel it out in her own creative way. At times I can struggle to find the best way to communicate between our brains.
Sydney was 5 years old and in kindergarten. This was an age when she was still learning how to field unexpected events and transitions and the feelings this brought up in her small self. Kyrie had an atypical early work meeting and wouldn’t be able to walk Sydney to school that morning. Kyrie decided she would share this with her the morning of, in hopes that less time to consider this shift would mean less time for building anxiety. Sydney’s face and mood immediately dropped upon hearing the news that I would be taking her to school. Kyrie pumped her up with encouragement and I tried to figure out what would be the best approach, which often felt like a guessing game in those days. It still does sometimes. I chose playful and adventurous while trying to provide space, knowing that moving too close may only spike her anxiety.
Kyrie was off and Sydney went outside in our winter yard where she often spent hours in imaginative world-building for insects . I went back to the kitchen to pour more coffee and clear breakfast dishes, leaving Sydney to gather herself, knowing my presence could often complicate her coping. I noticed our dog, Enna, getting anxious by the door and I went to check on Sydney. As I stepped towards the front door I could see the front gate was open and Sydney was not in the yard. Sydney has always been the kind of kid who sticks close, never a runner. I stepped onto the sidewalk and she was nowhere to be seen, no response to my calls for her. I threw on a coat and shoes and a leash on Enna who was also very worried about this sudden disappearance. I let Enna guide me down the street, nose to the ground, turning alongside a house where Sydney was standing next to trash cans, head down and against the side of the house. Relief flooded my body.
“Hey…Enna and I didn’t know where you had gone, look how excited she is to have found you!” Silence. At this point I am unsure of what to do and I rack my brain for some scripting I’ve picked up from Kyrie. If I don’t walk a delicate balance, I could easily make this worse at this particular stage in Sydney’s development. “It’s been a tough morning, huh? You weren’t expecting me to have to take you to school instead of Kyrie and you must have a lot of feelings about that.” Silence. Sniffles. Ok I’ll tell a story about when I was 5. I’ll ask her directly to walk back to the house with me. I ran out of strategies and my frustration was building as she did not budge from the side of that house.
I called Kyrie and explained how I’m stuck in a neighbor’s side yard with Sydney and after about 15 minutes on speaker phone and one very slow step at a time we made it back to our own front porch. The spiral isn’t over; it takes another 20 minutes to coax Sydney in the car and down the street where I drop her off to school puffy-eyed and 45 minutes late.
It has taken years of accumulation of small daily moments to build trust for this donut journey. Some days the details of the mundane can overwhelm me with my own frustrations with participating in raising a child. But this is where our relationship actually builds—quietly, unevenly, and in ways I never notice until later. Maybe that is all I’m really trying to do here: consistently show up to build trust over time, because despite the messiness of it all, this looks more like the world I want for us.