STANWOOD – It was a big day in the Constantine household early in the summer.
Michael O’Leary / The Herald
The woman from the adoption agency came to the home on Lake Goodwin to see whether Matthew, 8, and Jeffrey, 6, wanted a baby brother.
Their father, Everett Silvertips head coach and director of hockey operations Kevin Constantine, had broached the subject with his two sons several times before. He had exactly zero idea what they would answer, because both had been noncommittal.
Naturally, he watched with more than a little curiosity. Constantine recalls the conversation:
“What do you think of your dad adopting a little brother?” the woman asked Matthew.
“I think it’s gonna be GREAT!” Matthew piped.
“Why do you think it’s going to be so great?” the woman asked.
“Because when I’m mad at HIM,” Matthew said, pointing at Jeffrey, “I can go play with him.”
Thus, Nicholas Stephen Constantine came into this world June 27 and into the waiting arms of Constantine, a Minnesota native who admits weaknesses for hockey, lakes, trees and children.
“When you name the things that I’m in love with, kids are way up on the list,” he said, putting aside the stern, tightly wound facade his players regularly see.
It is a softened look that Silvertips play-by-play announcer Keith Gerhart knows well.
“He’s a great dad,” Gerhart said. “His two boys have gone with us on road trips a couple of times, and he helps them with their video games and really plays with them. Around them, he loses that edge that coaches usually have. Kids that age can run amok sometimes, but he does a really good job with them.”
The boys spent the summer with Constantine and his sister, Vicki Davis. Recently divorced, Constantine has custody of Matthew and Jeffrey during summers. They spend most of the school year and hockey season with their mother in Minnesota, save for some holidays.
Constantine said Jeffrey, especially, took to his new little brother.
“When his brother is around, he’s always the little guy,” Constantine said of his 6-year-old. “They call him ‘Short Stuff.’ So the concept that he was no longer the little brother took him a few weeks to understand. Now, he really likes it, because he’s now a big brother. He’s pretty excited about it.”
Imagine then, the silence Constantine would routinely come home to after games and practices. A camouflage-colored tree fort sits vacant high in a wooded area next to the driveway. The boys’ downstairs bedroom, decorated in an elaborate space motif that includes all nine planets and the moon, is empty.
Toy hockey nets and sticks lie unused in the driveway, as does a basketball hoop.
This is a lakefront home ideally suited for kids, but most of the time Constantine’s two older boys are more than a thousand miles away.
“The worst part of divorce is, for sure, the kid angle,” said Constantine, 46. “People can be divorced for reasons between two people. Whatever doesn’t work, doesn’t work. But the worst part, by far, is the less time you spend with your kids.”
How important are kids in Constantine’s world? He and his former wife, Peggy, were unable to conceive, so they adopted Matthew and Jeffrey. Both are open-adoption arrangements, meaning the birth parents may have some access to the children. Nicholas has the same arrangement.
“In the last 30 years of adopting kids, that’s been one of the big changes,” Constantine said. “In all three cases, the birth mothers are very active. They see the babies at least once a year, and often four or five times a year. I really like it. It makes it so my three boys don’t wonder about anything. There’s real Mom; there’s birth Mom.
“Plus, for the kids, this might seem a little materialistic, but they have four sets of grandparents. Talk about gifts on birthdays and Christmases!”
The open relationship Constantine has with his sons’ birth parents has worked well for all parties. He is sympathetic to the emotional trauma a woman experiences in giving up a child for adoption. He also is respectful of a woman’s decision to give up the baby so the child has a chance at a better life.
In all three cases, each birth mother was 17 years old. All have visited their birth sons without trouble, Constantine said. In fact, Nicholas’ birth mother will visit in a month.
“That decision is so phenomenal to me, that whatever they want to do is fine with me,” he said. “If they want to be enormously involved, I’m good with that. If they want to be just a little bit involved, I’m good with that.”
Opportunity knocks
When the longing for another child cropped up after the divorce and the opportunity presented itself, Constantine acted.
A single man in his mid-40s is a relatively uncommon adoptive father, said Vickie Mathews, assistant director of A Child’s Dream adoption agency. Especially in the case of open adoptions, it is important to many birth mothers that the adoptive couple are young and spry enough for playtime throughout the child’s formative years.
Still, she said, if the agency approves the adoptive father through its background checks and multiple interviews, the birth mother usually approves as well.
In Nicholas’ case, the birth mother knew Constantine – a common occurrence, Mathews said.
“An arrangement with a friend of the family is very, very common,” she said. “Many times, the birth mother has trouble saying goodbye, but it becomes easier if she knows she will see the baby. Many times, she becomes an ‘auntie.’”
Constantine’s girlfriend, Valerie Wright, has a daughter, Lauren, whose friend was pregnant. All three live in Pittsburgh.
Originally, the friend wanted to keep the baby, but soon realized the task might be more difficult than she first imagined and considered adoption. Lauren told her mother that she and Constantine might want to be the adoptive parents.
“For a number of reasons, it was just more logical for me to do it,” Constantine said. “While for some people this might be unconventional and out of the blue to end up with a baby boy, for me it’s the norm.”
He wouldn’t have considered it this time unless Davis, 60, had agreed to move from her home in Brainerd, Minn., and act as a nanny to her new nephew. The demands of Constantine’s job otherwise would have made the adoption out of the question.
Constantine didn’t have to ask his sister twice.
“He called me, and I was just ending a job,” Davis said. “The timing was perfect. I was shocked at first, but then I got excited. I’d rather do this than go to work every day.”
A team effort
Experience isn’t a problem. Davis has two grown children of her own and is expecting her third grandchild in January.
She even took care of her younger brother, Kevin, the first three years of his life, until she graduated from high school. Constantine is the youngest of seven children.
Nicholas, Davis said, is an easy baby to care for.
“He loves to be held,” Davis said. “He’s a snuggler. He likes to bury himself into you and snuggle. He eats and sleeps and smiles. He talks to you.”
So Constantine, for the third time, is doing all the things fathers do. He helps with feedings, dives into playtime and takes his turn at changing diapers.
“With all three of my boys, especially during the summer when I’m not working, I’m up at night doing the diaper change,” he said. “Every one of them has hit me with the water pistol, too. Three boys, three water pistols.”
It won’t be long until Constantine is dodging hockey pucks – from three angles.
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