Do As I Say, Not As I Do

  There have been a series of events over the past few weeks that intertwine themselves to form a sort of wicker basket story.  Let's go back to when someone else called and Daughter wound up talking to The Ex.  (For whatever strange reason, Daughter turned on her speakerphone and I overheard the majority of the conversation.  This would include the portion of the conversation when The Ex tried ending the call while Daughter tried to keep talking to her because she most likely missed her mother who never calls or text her.)

  Daughter told The Ex that she had a basketball tournament coming up in the next week; The Ex told Daughter that she was going to have to have Husband update the calendar on 2houses (That's not Daughter's job, and we weren't able to put anything on the calendar because we weren't given any info ourselves.)  Daughter says we just found out about it so we don't have any info, but we know her first game will be at noon.  The Ex tells Daughter she's going to miss the first game, but that Daughter should call or text her as soon as she knew what time the next game was so that she could try to attend.

  Skip ahead to the day of the tournament.  Daughter played her first game; she sent The Ex a text message shortly after the game ended saying that they were going to play again at 5pm.  The Ex said absolutely nothing to her.  Daughter played at 5pm that night and played again at 8pm that night; The Ex missed both games.

  The next morning, Daughter texted The Ex around 10:40am saying that they were playing again at 1pm and very excitedly said it was the championship game.  Again, The Ex ignored her.  No reply text, no phone call, absolutely nothing. (Nothing says "I love you" like getting blown off by your own mom two days in a row.)

  That same afternoon, The Ex's parents drove almost 2 hours to pick up pizzas they had ordered from Daughter's school fundraiser.  They met us literally outside of the school where the tournament was being held.  Daughter asked if they were staying for the game that was going to start in half an hour; The Ex's mom said no, they were headed over to another city. (So not only did her mother blow her off, but her grandparents blew her off.  My heart was breaking for Daughter.)

  On Sunday afternoon, The Ex's sister posted on Facebook that they were all at a water park together and she was going swimming with The Ex's two youngest kids.  This irritated me immensely but I thought about it for awhile and tried, once again, to give The Ex the benefit of the doubt; I thought perhaps she had left her two youngest kids with her family and was not actually with them herself.  A few hours later, another family member posted pictures of all of them swimming with the kids.  Yes, The Ex was there.

  Are you following the pattern here?  Everyone on The Ex's side of the family had more important things to do than to watch Daughter play basketball.  The Ex was too busy running around with her family having fun that she couldn't even say "Good luck" to Daughter (I wouldn't care this much except for the fact that The Ex is the one who said she was going to come.  Daughter didn't "invite" her, so to speak; The Ex said she was going to come and to give her the dates and times.  Yet the tournament rolls around and The Ex is completely silent.)  The Ex's parents, despite being right at the game, were too busy doing other things that they couldn't stay. (My reason for all of this is coming to a head, I promise you.)

  A few days after all of this, Daughter logged onto Facebook and said, "....it's Mom's birthday today?" (Um....I guess?)  I assumed that since Daughter had said this out loud, Son heard her and either one or both of them would be calling and/or texting The Ex to tell her happy birthday.  The Ex's birthday also happened to be Wednesday, which is Family Night at our house.  (For those of you who haven't read other blog posts here yet, Family Night is the one night a week when we are all required to be home - no friends, no sleepovers, and no cell phones.  It is our one "required" day a week when we do something as a family, whether it's watching a movie, going swimming, going bowling, taking a bike ride - that's our night.  This has been our tradition for over five years now.)

  At almost 6pm on Family Night, The Ex sends a picture message to both Son and Daughter of what I assume she was eating for dinner and wrote:
"Happy birthday [The Ex]" (I don't know why she was wishing herself a happy birthday, or even referring to herself in the third person.  The whole thing was weird.)

  The next morning, both Son and Daughter had missed calls from The Ex's mom from the night before.  Son also had a message telling him to call The Ex's mom back "as soon as he got this."  Daughter called their grandma back.  Do you guys want to take a guess as to why she called, or what was so important that she wanted them to call her back right away?

  The Ex's mom called to tell the kids that The Ex had texted her the night before and said she "felt really bad" because neither Son or Daughter had wished her a happy birthday the night before.

  Yes, you read that correctly.  Nobody came to watch Daughter play any of her basketball games; nobody gave enough of a damn to even ask how her games went.  But oh no, The Ex "felt bad" because she wasn't treated like a pretty little princess on her birthday?  She didn't get a birthday greeting from her kids, who she blows off at every opportunity either because they "live so far away" or because she's going to spend time with her married boyfriend - but the kids are supposed to feel guilty because she feels bad?

  .....I am so irritated by this.  I cannot even tell you how much I loathe these people and their selfish, narcissistic behavior.  The Ex and her entire family are all trash.