Secular Confessions

[missychrissy]

I'm supposed to do me & Rich's taxes today, but I'm not sure what time. He was supposed to come over yesterday but when I stopped over at 6:30 last night I learned he hadn't been grocery shopping, just buying stuff every day to eat for dinner. They hadn't eaten and didn't have anything in the house to cook at that point and Rich & I got into it bigtime. I told him it was too late, he'd have to go grocery shopping and feed the kids first.

Talking with Jesi, I learned he hasn't been grocery shopping in weeks and her & Kaleb are home all day without anything to make for lunch. I'm furious. I give him money to contribute toward groceries, as well as pay his car insurance, cell phone, health insurance, and daycare for Conner before/after school. I am tempted to just give the cash to Jesi and take her with me when I go grocery shopping, since she's the one that usually makes dinner anyway, but it really shouldn't be up to her to take care of her dad like that. She's willing, even eager, because it will be a relief for her to have food in the house. But still, I'm really hung up on her playing the caretaker roll. Rich needs to step it up and take care of his kids.

I ended up bringing Conner to my house. I was going to feed him, but he said he wasn't hungry and that his belly felt weird. He did feel feverish, but denied actually feeling sick. He woke me up around 4:30 because he'd thrown up. My poor little guy.

[Suja]

Aw man, Chrissy! That's tough. Can you at least have Jesi call you if they need anything? So you can call and nag Rich? Not that it's your job, but.... And I hope Conner feels better.

[pepperlru]

Chrissy, I'd be irate. He's a grown man -- he needs to learn to take care of his children. My goodness. I can see how you'd feel torn about what kind of help to give... obviously, they do need food in the house, but it's really not your job to do their grocery shopping, and how is he going to step up if he still thinks he can rely on you? Ugh. And poor Conner! I hope it's a one-off and he's feeling better now.

Suja, sorry about Mira's foot. If it were me I'd probably wait until tomorrow and see if she's walking normally -- if not I'd go in for a check. So many small bones in the foot, and even if it's a sprain, how do you keep a 3 year old off it?

[Cosmosmom]

Myles I'm sorry about the bad news. I though absolutely do not think that you missed it in getting B a sibling. My sister is exactly 4 years and 9 months younger than I am. And we have almost always been best of friends and really close. Only time it wasn't so much was when I was like 16 and she was 11....I was into hanging out with my friends and not my dorky sister who tattled that my friends swore. Really I liked hanging out with her but not at the same time I was with my "friends". It's actually been great to have the age difference as we never did have to compete against each other for friends or in school or for attention from our parents.

Congrats to Ryan on his award!!!! That is soooo cool!

Suja I hope that it's just a tiny owie and feels a lot better tomorrow morning.

[Suja]

Forgot to tell you guys. The niece who is coming to do her university tour, she had gotten admission to the honors program at a university that is practically in our back yard. She wasn't considering it because it isn't particularly high on any rankings. Well, they've gone ahead and offered her a free ride, so now she doesn't know what to do. Her dad is putting a lot of pressure on her to accept, and to use what he had saved for her education for grad school. Unfortunately for him, she is at least as strong willed as he is, and won't be pressured. IMO, undergrad school doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, so hopefully, she'll do the sensible thing.

[Krystal5]

Ah, Ashley, that's why the screen name! How do you like it out there? If things keep getting worse here, maybe I'll come join you, hah.

How fun that Josh will be in Lion King!! We're very active in our local little theater. None of us act, but it is something I've thought about for Maiya, if she seems to enjoy it. Go Josh!

L, so sorry about the summer school issue. If I had any qualifications I'd watch them for you!

Mylah, so sorry about the bad news... What does FWP mean? I hope everything turns out ok...

I feel the same way about Maiya and a second sibling. I know she's younger than Bodhi, but come on, I'm on BC now, IF I manage to have a second kid, it won't be any time soon! I've feel bad I've asked before, but what's your story? Were you just waiting to try again and time got away with you, or have you been STC, too?

Gretch, yay for Ryan!! How exciting...

Suja, hope Mira's ankle / foot is ok.

Chrissy, that's awful! He needs to grow up. Though I can't really say anything, mine would probably do the same... Even when he's just watching her, and we have food in the house, he "forgets" to feed her all too often... Wish I had some good answers, but that's a tough situation...

Jennifer, I'm worried about that type of thing for Maiya. The whole dorky / annoying young / older sibling thing... But if we do have another, it would be about the same age gap as you and your sister. It's bound to happen...

Hope your niece makes the right choice, Suja!

So we made Maiya's bed in to her "big girl" bed today. She picked out a comforter today- dinosaurs. Is it odd that I'm so ridiculously proud that my toddler passed up things like Sesame Street and Rapunzel and such for dinosaurs?? Unfortunately, bedtime ended up a bit late today, so now she has a whole new bed AND is over tired... And hubby put her to bed, but for some reason is hanging out in the room with her. Ugh, wish us luck! I hope she loves it, but more importantly, I hope she sleeps, haha.

[Bridget]

Oh man, Chrissy. That story about Rich would have me so upset! That is what I'd worry about all the time if dbf and I were separated.

How is Mira/s foot today?

I had to actively avoid the football game yesterday. I did catch the halftime show which I loved. I loved to watch Beyonce. Some of those commercials straight up pissed me off and of course they are the ones that everyone else loved. Like the one that went on and on addressing the soldiers about how we are all waiting for them to come home. Really? Because last time I checked we are leaving are vets sick, homeless and unemployed. And then of course the dodge truck commercial all patriotic and beautiful images of farmers. Everyone gets so touched by that sh!t and it's like they are just trying to SELL you something. They don't care about farmers. Very few people in our country do, in fact, care about the farmers depicted in that commerical. They are being pushed out by factory farms and can hardly even pay their bills after years of toil. Ugh. Poor dbf. I get all up in arms about this stuff!

Remember how I told you guys that dbf's friend sent the kids a bunch of bible movies? Well last night he was like, "I'd like it if you'd sit down with the kids tomorrow and have them write a thank you letter to J. Have it done by the afternoon so I can send it out with some other stuff."
I don't know. I think I am pms-ing but that just bugged me! First of all, when I have you EVER cared if the kids sent out thank you letters? Never. Second of all, I don't appreciate the deadline, and third YOU DO IT. Gah. I'm so sick of him not doing anything with them!
Then to put the icing on the cake he asks me if I have daycare kids coming tomorrow because he has work to do so he's going to need it quiet. Um. You will have to go somewhere quiet then! We live here. This is our home, our school, and my business. If you have to make a few phone calls and send a few emails, figure it out.

[Suja]

Mira was walking on her foot this morning, still hobbled, but that's better than yesterday. But, by the time we got to school, she was complaining that it was hurting. I've asked her teacher to keep an eye on her, and to call me if it bothers her. The doctor cleared her to go to school, and if they do call and ask me to pick her up, I'm going to take her straight to urgent care, since her pedi's office does not do x-rays. I should probably have gone yesterday, when everyone else was watching the game (yeah, I watched too).

I agree with you, Bridget, on the commercials. The Ram commercial, we were looking at each other, totally perplexed. We couldn't figure out what it was an ad for, and once they showed, we're like what does that have to do with farmers? I did love the Tide commercial with the Montana stain; I was a huge 49ers fan when we first moved here, and that was prime time for Montana and Rice.

[daylilies]

That would piss me off too Bridget!

We watched the game for a while, got bored and did something else and then the lights went out and the game got interesting so we watched the rest of it. I enjoy the commercials. I know they are trying to sell me something but I'm not going to go buy a certain truck just because they did a touching commercial. I love the Budweiser commercials but I don't drink Bud. LOL

Commercials seem to be more about entertaining the audience than selling the product. In my head I like to play "What are they trying to sell?" like when they have those fancy commercials with a blinged out beautiful woman wearing a dress, tons of jewelry, in a dance club, with guys all around her, and it turns out they're selling a car that's not shown until the very end.

[pepperlru]

Bridget, I'd be annoyed about the thank you note too, and for all the same reasons. If it's so important to him to thank his friend, let him sit down with the kids and get it done.

I get frustrated too watching commercials, which is why I'm glad I don't usually have to see them. We don't have cable or network tv (we have A tv -- we stream Netflix and watch dvds), so no sports watching here. Actually, even when we did have cable, still no sports. I'm one of those fortunate people whose partner has absolutely no interest in televised sporting events. Sometimes we get invited to a Super Bowl party, but this year we didn't. Actually I think our only friends who watch the game have stopped inviting us because we're the ones who find the game a distraction from the food and company and are always saying stupid things like "So what are the lines on the field for?"

Suja, I'm glad Mira's foot is better enough today that she could go to school. I hope you don't have to go for x-rays.

[Cosmosmom]

Didn't watch last night. I generally hate commercials and am not used to watching since I DVR most everything I watch. And the Packers were not playing so just didn't care.

Dh and I watched the first two Harry Potter movies over the weekend. He's reading the books right now and wanted to see the movies....we had borrowed them from my dad last year. I know we saw the first two and maybe even the third but it was so long ago that I couldn't remember what happened really.

If I had to leave the grocery shopping up to DH there would be a lot of frozen pizza, peanut butter toast and snacks....nuts, goldfish, pretzels. He is good to shop if I give him a list but not with coming up with the stuff on his own. He will look and find a few things we need, I look and find $120 worth of stuff we need for the week.

You should have told him that it would be a great project to do a thank card for his boss's gift with the kids....here's the supplies! I don't let DH get away with that....when we had to do thank you's for the wedding, he did them with me, especially for his side. When we sent out our xmas cards, he addressed the envelopes while I was finishing off making the cards. If making a card for his mom's birthday or mother's day, he has to write in the card and help pick the colors or embellishments or whatever. That way he can tell her that he helped make her card.

[3andMe]

I don't like watching televised sports either. We stopped getting invited to Superbowl parties around the time we had kids, I think. The children were asking about what all the flags meant on the cars so I was explaining about the big football game, and DD asked if it was like "Root, root, root for the home team!" and then asked if she could go to the Superbowl. DH was worried that if I explained to them about football all of a sudden they'd turn into little sports-watching fanatics and we'd have football on all the time in our house, and I had to reassure him that we still control the tv, and that we don't get broadcast tv or sports on it anyway. And that most people who really develop a love of watching sports do so because they have friends or family that introduce them to it with along with a feeling of warmth and cameraderie and fellowship and ritual, and they really aren't that interesting to watch all on their own without all the emotions that go along with them.

DD was singing a little song about how much she loved me yesterday, and then said, "I just like to sing about things in my life, you know, things that I know and I'm familiar with." So S. stared down at his plate and said, "Well, I'm going to sing a song about grapes, then." Later that night he told DH that he comes from a star that is very far away. DS continues to be pesky. He spit on his finger and drew things in my car with his spit yesterday and when I caught him he said he made his own rules and he couldn't wait until he was a grown-up and didn't have to follow any rules.

[Cosmosmom]

Myles, I forgot this last night but I think that the boy scouts can be an ok group depending on their location. My little cousin has two mom's and while neither leaders, it seems like his pack is pretty accepting. One of his mom's and my mom are leaders for his sisters girl scout troop and I know for a fact that they do not pray before meetings. I think with both the scouts so much depends on the local level and who the leaders are of the group.

[Suja]

when I caught him he said he made his own rules and he couldn't wait until he was a grown-up and didn't have to follow any rules.

Boy, is he in for a big surprise! Perhaps you could walk him into a police station, and have the cops explain to him just how many rules grown-ups have to follow, and what the consequences are for not doing so.

[Suja]

Myles, I forgot this last night but I think that the boy scouts can be an ok group depending on their location. My little cousin has two mom's and while neither leaders, it seems like his pack is pretty accepting. One of his mom's and my mom are leaders for his sisters girl scout troop and I know for a fact that they do not pray before meetings. I think with both the scouts so much depends on the local level and who the leaders are of the group.

Isn't there a move afoot to make Boy Scouts more inclusive, and allowing gay men to be leaders? I remember reading/hearing about that recently. Given where Myles lives, I'd think that the troops won't be overly conservative.

[Cosmosmom]

Boy, is he in for a big surprise! Perhaps you could walk him into a police station, and have the cops explain to him just how many rules grown-ups have to follow, and what the consequences are for not doing so.

no kidding! Maybe point out all the rules that grown-ups have to follow?

[daylilies]

DH isn't really into sports either. He does fantasy football and once that was over he didn't care about the playoffs or anything. He didn't really care about the game, either. We watched it for the commercials. LOL Although it did get interesting with the power outage and the almost comeback. Josh was interested before he went to bed, and asked why we didn't go to the Superbowl.

Since my husband works for Comcast we get all the channels but we really only use a few of them. We mostly use Netflix-both the streaming and the shows they can mail to you.

[daylilies]

Speaking of sports, we're going to a Providence Bruins game on Friday. We bought tickets through the school and I completely forgot about it until we received the tickets a couple days ago. Anyone know anything about hockey?

[missychrissy]

Oh man, Chrissy. That story about Rich would have me so upset! That is what I'd worry about all the time if dbf and I were separated.

How is Mira/s foot today?

I had to actively avoid the football game yesterday. I did catch the halftime show which I loved. I loved to watch Beyonce. Some of those commercials straight up pissed me off and of course they are the ones that everyone else loved. Like the one that went on and on addressing the soldiers about how we are all waiting for them to come home. Really? Because last time I checked we are leaving are vets sick, homeless and unemployed. And then of course the dodge truck commercial all patriotic and beautiful images of farmers. Everyone gets so touched by that sh!t and it's like they are just trying to SELL you something. They don't care about farmers. Very few people in our country do, in fact, care about the farmers depicted in that commerical. They are being pushed out by factory farms and can hardly even pay their bills after years of toil. Ugh. Poor dbf. I get all up in arms about this stuff!

Remember how I told you guys that dbf's friend sent the kids a bunch of bible movies? Well last night he was like, "I'd like it if you'd sit down with the kids tomorrow and have them write a thank you letter to J. Have it done by the afternoon so I can send it out with some other stuff."
I don't know. I think I am pms-ing but that just bugged me! First of all, when I have you EVER cared if the kids sent out thank you letters? Never. Second of all, I don't appreciate the deadline, and third YOU DO IT. Gah. I'm so sick of him not doing anything with them!
Then to put the icing on the cake he asks me if I have daycare kids coming tomorrow because he has work to do so he's going to need it quiet. Um. You will have to go somewhere quiet then! We live here. This is our home, our school, and my business. If you have to make a few phone calls and send a few emails, figure it out.

I agree with you about the commercials. AND dbf. He needs to do the thank-you notes with the kids if he thinks it's that important.


The next day when I saw Rich, he acted like nothing had happened. We didn't have a big argument the day before. Nothing was said about his failure to grocery shop for weeks straight. I'm beyond frustrated.

[Cosmosmom]

Hockey...you want to get the puck into the goal of the other team. It's a lot like soccer. But it's really quite fun to watch in person. Fast and exciting. Just have to keep an eye out because the puck sometimes flies into the stands! We used to go and watch the Milwaukee Admirals 1-2 times a year and I liked that. But now we would have to see the Minnesota Wild and tickets are hard to get and I get paranoid about spending a lot of money on tickets for an event in MN and not being able to go because it's snowing. High school hockey is so huge here too that even tickets to those games are hard to get your hands on.

I am not that into sports but my DH is into them. Packers for football and Brewers for baseball. Not so much college sports and he hates basketball. But likes other ones too like World Cup and Olympics time. Used to like Tour de France but not so much now with all the issues. One of his favorites to watch when he can find it is curling. LOL

And Cosmo really loves football. Seriously, her favorite stuffed toy is a football, she loves the real football. She loves words like touchdown, safe, he could go all the way. And even if we aren't saying those all excited, she loves them. She doesn't freak out when DH is all excited over baseball...only football. Even our neighbors were amused watching her play outside with the real football....she freaks out when she sees it, chases it around and almost herds it pushing it around the yard.
We actually found out she loved football by accident....we had gotten the ball so we could get some shots of DH tossing it around for the adoption portfolio....trying to show our hobbies and things we enjoy and he likes football.
Molly is just like what's going on what's going on...well Cosmo is excited so I will be too but that ball is scary...maybe I will just try to tackle Cosmo instead. LOL

[demigraf]

Yeah, agree with you on all counts, Bridget (though I didn't actually see te commercials, I feel ya, sistah). And of course Mark should work with the kids if he wants them to make thank you cards. You're not his secretary, fer crying out loud!

[demigraf]

Chrissy, it sucks that you're not even with Rich anymore and you still have to be his mommy about everything. I'd say you should just let him fall, but you need him
to get it together for the kids too. Guess what I'd do in your shoes is keep helping him, keep him from
falling on his face, but document all the times he fails to be a parent to the kids and have it handy in the event you feel he's such a slacker that you want full custody. Not that you don't know this, but it's all about the kids' best interest. If you try and try, and he still can't parent them on his own, taking them fully might be the best thing for them. :/

[missychrissy]

I've actually been contemplating if now isn't the time to file for custody. It wouldn't necessarily mean that things would have to change in our schedules, but if I get custody established now I could leverage that in the future. He argued with me about letting Conner come with me Saturday night, even though Conner hadn't eaten and there wasn't anything in the house. If push came to shove, I'm not sure where the police could have drawn the line on that and maybe I would have been told to just go home (Rich did have money and could have said he was going to get something to eat right now). If I have a custody order, then what I say goes according to the law.

I hate to do that though...but I feel like Rich is forcing me to.

[demigraf]

Oh, *hugs* mama! I hope it doesn't turn ugly for both of you. Maybe you could sell full custody to Rich as less stuff for him to have to worry about and be responsible for. Some people respond well when you appeal to their inner LAZY. I do wish you had more help in him, though.

[missychrissy]

If I had any help from him at all, I probably wouldn't be living in my own apartment. I honestly felt like I had 5 kids, not 4. I know lots of women joke about that stuff but Rich really takes it to the next level. He cannot do anything on his own without someone telling him to do it. Or how it should be done.

My filing for custody wouldn't appeal to his lazy side at all. It's a pride thing, and he'd only see it as me taking the kids away from him, even if we didn't change our current visitation schedule. Like, it doesn't matter that Conner spends the majority of his time with me. On paper (for the school), Conner lives primarily with his dad. Rich likes that. People think I left my kids with him and he doesn't bother to correct their assumptions. He also gladly takes "child support" from me, even though it's true they're at my house more often. And they definitely get more food from me. So much so, that it's starting to become a problem. He's gotten so used to be supplying Jesi & Kaleb's lunches, it's starting to impact how much food I have for myself.

[daylilies]

I know what you mean by having a 5th kid, Chrissy. Although DH is pretty responsible in most ways, sometimes I just can't believe him.


I got Josh's report card today. First of all I think it's funny that they give report cards in K, but okay. It seems he's doing fine in everything except he's not terribly excited about music and art. If I know Josh at all it's probably because they're too structured in school. He sings all the time at home and he makes art when he's compelled to but it's harder to get him into it if it's something structured like "Let's learn this song" or "Let's paint a picture of what our house looks like."

Anyway, I'm not concerned. It's K and he's meeting all the academic standards just fine.

[pepperlru]

Ugh, Chrissy. I'm so sorry.
I don't know what it's like to be in your situation, but I do know how it is to look at legal custody agreements as an insurance policy of sorts. I actually was glad at times that my ex was so terrible at keeping up with child support payments, because I think it kept him from ever demanding anything of me re: custody and visitation that I wasn't comfortable with. It sounds like you're in a bigger mess, though, with having your very good reasons for having things the way they are, but still having to provide so much in help. I hope you're documenting all of these things, at least, so that if you need it in the future you have some evidence of his irresponsibility.

[Gwenn]

Bridget, I totally agree with you about the commercials. Especially the Jeep one with all the soldiers - I was just so offended by the idea that a car company knows what I went through with DH deployed I wanted to throw something at the television. Most of DH's Facebook friends are military and apparently they all thought it was so wonderful. I'm just wondering how people can fail to see how insultingly pandering the whole thing is? That's the last thing in the world that makes me want to buy their product.

I always do love the Clydesdale commercials, though. This one really was sweet.

[missychrissy]

Ugh, Chrissy. I'm so sorry.
I don't know what it's like to be in your situation, but I do know how it is to look at legal custody agreements as an insurance policy of sorts. I actually was glad at times that my ex was so terrible at keeping up with child support payments, because I think it kept him from ever demanding anything of me re: custody and visitation that I wasn't comfortable with. It sounds like you're in a bigger mess, though, with having your very good reasons for having things the way they are, but still having to provide so much in help. I hope you're documenting all of these things, at least, so that if you need it in the future you have some evidence of his irresponsibility.

It really is complicated...our girls are older, so making them move with me really wasn't an option. I could have forced the issue with Syd and Conner, because they're younger (14 and 6), but Syd would have hated me. It was an incredibly difficult decision to make, but I thought it would be easier for Conner if I didn't force him to come with me too. We'd just moved to 'the little house' and everything he knew and loved was there. I knew Rich would at least share the kids 50/50, so I thought I'd try that. So that's what we're doing. Or we're supposed to be doing. As it is, I have them a little over 50% of the time (don't mind) yet I'm still paying many bills and giving Rich cash because I make about 2x as much as he does. That was the other reason I opted to leave, rather than file for divorce and try to get the house. We bought my parent's house for what they owed on it, so our mortgage is less than $400/month. Rich wouldn't be able to rent a place for that. Not one big enough so all the kids could stay with him comfortably anyway.

I put a lot of thought into it, and really if Rich would just do the basic things this should work. I stayed close-I'm exactly 2 miles away. The kids can stay with me and it's close enough for me to drop them off in the morning so they can catch their bus like normal.

[Bridget]

You certainly did put a lot of thought into it. It's a shame that Rich can't appreciate how much you look out for him and step up.

I need you all send me every ounce of courage vibes you have for my Savana. Today I am dropping her and Kai off at a homeschool program in madison that meets a few times a month for nature/science learning. Today they are going to snowshoe down the nature trail! Savana has been having severe anxiety about it all week. Meeting new people is really hard for her. I'm hoping beyond hope that drop off goes smoothly. I'm scared that it will be awful.