Joe & Dana

I’ve said very little about Joe and Dana.  Joe is my father-in-law for a bit yet.  Dana is his wife.  They have both decided that they want to continue a relationship with the kids, and even me.  I don’t know how this usually works, but it’s my opinion that once you’ve committed a piece of your heart to someone as a member of your family, no matter what may happen after that, family is always family.  As my brother Don once said about me, there are no half-s or wholes between us as brothers.  I believe this works the same way for step- and –in-law. It is a two-way street though, and if someone continues to show you nothing but disrespect, and gives you nothing but grief, then they are best avoided.  Joe and Dana and I have not always seen eye-to-eye on everything, but there have been a lot of misunderstandings in the past.  Many of these have been cleared up.  Bygones can be bygones once everybody is ready to move on.  I’m glad for the kids, because they are good people.

They care very much about the kids, and are going to be an important and continuing part of their lives.  They have expressed this desire, and I want the kids to have all the positive influences they can get.  They are also very physically conscious of the kids and their health and wellbeing.  I’ve noticed that, although they are both smokers, they always go outside to smoke when we are there.  They must do this all the time, because I have noted that unlike the homes of other people who are smokers, their home is not stained with nicotine, and it doesn’t reek of tobacco.  My sister’s home is the same. 

I worry about the kids health.  I know that they are recently being treated for respiratory problems by their doctor.  I wonder how much of this is from living where they do half the time and breathing in all the second hand smoke.  The EPA states that “The developing lungs of young children are severely affected by exposure to secondhand smoke for several reasons including that children are still developing physically, have higher breathing rates than adults, and have little control over their indoor environments. Children receiving high doses of secondhand smoke, such as those with smoking mothers, run the greatest risk of damaging health effects.”  More info is available at http://www.epa.gov/smokefree/    Thankfully, the kids mother does not smoke, but she lives with her mother (the kids grandmother) right now who smokes.  Some times when I pick up Lexie and Logan, I have to ride for a while with the windows down because their clothes and hair reek so badly of stale cigarette smoke.  I worry what their lungs look like.  Joe and Dana would never risk the kids health this way.  I’ve spoken with them about it, and they both know the dangers of second-hand smoke.  I’ve come to visit without the kids, and they do the same thing—never smoking around me.  Their mother is just doing what she has to do right now, but I look forward to the day that she has her own place and is away from that unhealthy environment.  She has asthma and allergies.  If you read on the EPA web site, you know why she probably has these problems.