It's All My Husband's Fault

  It's that time of year again.  I previously blogged a summarization of the past years of Holiday Crazy which you can read here .  And now, here we are again.   About three and a half weeks ago, The Ex created a group chat and added all four of her siblings, both of her parents, her sister-in-law, Son, Girlfriend, Daughter, her nephews and her niece; not a single person from Ned's family was added to this group chat, including Ned himself.  The Ex sent a message to everyone saying, "Created this site to find out WHO is wanting to get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas AND WHERE??? SOON...VERY SOON" ( She's using Facebook Messenger; she thinks she created a website.  This is awesome . )  The Ex also wrote, "I really want to be able this year and every year from now on to have our whole family together. It means a lot to me if we can do this. Even if it's not on THAT DAY... I'll have to check [Daughter's] schedule to see if I have her. Pleas...

  The Ex must really be mad at Son.  Even though their defective relationship is almost completely her fault, she will never admit to that and just continue to blame Son, Husband, me, or anyone else as long as it is not herself.  She's posted things to Facebook lately which I'm pretty sure are intended to hurt Son's feelings.   Yesterday, she shared a post that read: "Daughters are a blessing, especially mine!"   That could be waved off; posting that she loves her daughters doesn't mean that she doesn't love Son.   However, a little over a week before that post she shared one that read: "I always need my daughter no matter what age I am. She has made me laugh, made me proud, made me cry, seen me cry, hugged me tight, seen me fail, cheered me up, kept me on my toes and has driven me crazy at times... But my daughter is a promise that I will have a friend forever."   Less than two weeks before that, she tagged Son in a post she shared which read:...

  It was recently my birthday.  Girlfriend posted a picture that I had taken of myself with the baby, tagged me in the post, and wrote: "Happy birthday!! Thank you for being such an amazing woman and supporting us the way you do. You are an absolutely amazing woman, mama and grandma. We love you so much [my name]!! [Son] wanted me to make it clear that this was from all of us. 😂😂"   It was so sweet, I honestly had to fight back the tears.   However, Girlfriend did not write this on my timeline.  She posted it on her own...which means that The Ex and everyone else in The Ex's family could see it.  All three of The Ex's sisters wished me a happy birthday, Son and one of The Ex's sisters "love" reacted to the post, and even The Ex's sister-in-law "liked" the post.   But part of me cringes a little bit when I wonder to myself how The Ex will react to this, particularly considering that she's been whining for almost 8 months about ...

  Since we started providing phones for Son and Daughter when they reached 12 years old, we've monitored interactions between them and anyone associated with The Ex.  I could care less what they text their friends or what they talk about; The Ex is sheer evil, her family isn't any better, and I'll be damned if I let them have free reign over these children.  Judge me if you want, call me a helicopter parent; I don't really care.  When you've been through what we have, heard what we've heard, seen what we've seen, then I guarantee you that you're going to start documenting everything until your kid turns 18.  It also helps that recording phone calls without notifying the other parent is legal in this state.   We hadn't checked Daughter's phone in months because honestly, she's already 17 and Son is 19.  Documentation is not nearly as vital as it was when they were 12 and 10, and The Ex was constantly mind-f*cking them.  I've continued ...

  Putting aside the volleyball issue, there was still plenty of drama surrounding The Ex's son's birthday party. Apparently, The Ex had planned this haunted-house themed party and it was going to be a whole big deal and members of the family, including Daughter, were supposed to dress up and be part of this haunted house. ( I ought to upload the video that The Ex posted when her daughter was 4 and her son was 1.  The Ex and Boyfriend decided to take them to a haunted house/train thing; her daughter was scared out of her mind.  As this happened, The Ex filmed it on her phone.  The Ex didn't take her daughter away from what was scaring her, she didn't stop recording; you just hear this traumatized child screaming and crying throughout the whole. damn. video. )   The night before the party, The Ex sent Daughter a long-winded text message complaining about...well, everything: "Ordered 6 pizzas from [local pizza place]. 1 cheese, 3 pepperoni, 2 sausage. I'll ...

  Anyone who has followed this blog for some time knows and understands that while The Ex might say  that she wants her kids to play sports or be involved in extracurricular activities, what she actually means is that she doesn't care what they do just as long as it fits into her schedule and what she wants to do; if it poses any form of an inconvenience to her, then she doesn't want them to participate.   To go back a little bit and refresh everyone's memory, years ago Husband and The Ex came to a stipulated custody agreement.  In exchange for us getting every other placement weekend rather than only one weekend each month, The Ex would get any weekends that included a Friday or a Monday off of school; if the day off of school fell on a weekend that would be Husband's, then they would switch weekends so that The Ex got the extra day of placement.   Daughter had a volleyball tournament scheduled recently; Husband updated the calendar to reflect this on Augu...