It's All My Husband's Fault

  At the end of September, the kids don't have school on Friday which means that Son & Daughter would get picked up on Thursday night.  However, Daughter has practice Friday afternoon.  The Ex's brother is also getting married that weekend, nearly 2 hours from where they all live.  Then Son & Daughter would have to come back to our house on Sunday evening.  What this boils down to is that The Ex will be doing somewhere around 14-16 hours of driving that weekend.   Daughter tells me yesterday that The Ex wants her to skip practice at the end of the month because she "doesn't want to drive that much that weekend."  I looked at Daughter and said, "...then don't move two hours away."  Daughter replied, "Right?!" ( I typically do not say anything about The Ex that could be perceived in a negative way, but Daughter's reaction confirmed that she is not the idiot that her mother wishes she was - she can see her mother's true color...

  Daughter has started volleyball for this year; everything has been on the calendar for well over a month, and The Ex was told on August 9th that she was responsible for picking up Daughter this past Wednesday when practice ended.   On Tuesday, Daughter's coach made an announcement that practice was going to end at 5pm the following evening rather than at 6pm as originally scheduled.  Daughter told me this when I picked her up; I believe she was already texting The Ex to let her know but I said Husband would email her about the change.  We got home, Husband updated the calendar on 2houses, and sent a message about the earlier finish time.   Forty-six minutes later: "Mom and dad ( *Dad ) want to watch [Daughter] practice. ( "I'm too lazy to come get Daughter, so my parents will be doing it for me.  I will make it seem like this is what they want, rather than just them compensating for my deadbeat parenting as they always do." ) Since there ( *they're )...

  My assumption is that there's trouble in paradise (i.e. The Ex and Ned are fighting) because The Ex is suddenly firing off messages to Husband and telling him what he's going to do.  Wait, no.   Trying to tell him what to do.  The Ex has a history of attacking Husband without provocation whenever something else is going poorly in her life; in the past, I've been able to match the incidents of her blowing up at Husband to police reports/Facebook posts/whatever else indicating that she and Boyfriend were fighting.   After not discussing her plans, The Ex announced she was dropping off Daughter on Sunday and declared Husband was taking her to her physical.  Husband and I have a wedding to attend on Sunday; we're not going to leave our home unlocked all day long.  After the incident 2 years ago when The Ex showed up unannounced when we weren't home and in essence told the kids to unlock the house after we explicitly said not to do so, neither of the kid...

  It's come to be expected that anytime you try to talk to The Ex, she will act like you are inconveniencing her in every way imaginable.  Even if it's something that affects her, she will act like it's a burden for her to have to try to discuss anything about her children.   Back in June, Husband emailed The Ex to let her know that Daughter wanted to play volleyball and basketball this upcoming school year.  The next day, The Ex replied that she would like to see a schedule.  Husband replied, said he attached the volleyball schedule but that the basketball schedule had not been put out yet.  The Ex did not respond.   On July 18th, Husband created calendar events on 2houses showing all of Daughter's volleyball activities: practices, games, tournaments, etc.  The Ex said nothing.   On July 29th, I scheduled a sports physical for Daughter with her doctor; now that she's in high school, a physical is required for her to participate in any school...

  I feel it's important to acknowledge each child on their birthday; I want them to understand that they're important to me in their own unique way.  I probably feel more strongly about this than I should because between the six kids that we and The Ex have, four of them have birthdays in July. It's easy to feel like you got thrown together with everything else so I always try to make an acknowledgement of each individual child. On the other hand, this is what The Ex has done since she joined Facebook: 2012   No post on Son's birthday.   Posted 34 words about Daughter's birthday.   Uploaded six pictures of her niece's baptism, THEN posted 39 words about Son's birthday which included making sure to let us all know that she "wasn't on Facebook" on his birthday. ( Yes, she was )   Posted 64 words about her daughter's birthday and another 22 words about her niece/goddaughter's baptism. Uploaded a photo of her daughter with her birthda...

  The Ex took out a restraining order on Boyfriend over a year ago.  Immediately following this, Boyfriend continued to try making contact - my guess is not because he wanted to see her, but because he wanted to see his children that The Ex essentially stole from him.  Boyfriend was charged and recently convicted on two counts of violating the restraining order; now that the case is closed, I can get copies of documents from the case.   The one I really wanted to see was what is referred to as a "victim impact statement."  This is how the victim can explain to the court how they were affected by the crime, what they would like the sentencing to be, etc.  You should probably get some popcorn, because I'm going to type this entire thing out and, as always, give you my opinion on it. " State of [Our State] vs. [Boyfriend's Name] Case No. [case number] ( Random fact:  you're supposed to clarify which county the case is in.  Looking over this ...

  The whole "I'm-Her-Favorite-Adult" thing put aside, I really do love Daughter.  Don't get me wrong, I also love Son.  But the fact is that Daughter and I have an undeniable, unbreakable bond - which The Ex hates me for, but that's for another blog post.   Daughter complained earlier this summer about having to go back to The Ex's house; she wanted to stay here, go swimming at the pool, and hang out with her friends.  When she is at The Ex's house, it becomes her job to watch The Ex's two youngest children and occasionally Ned's child. ( The Ex has told other people that Daughter does not want to watch Ned's child; both kids have told us that Ned's child is extremely naughty and misbehaves constantly, so it's understandable that Daughter would not want to deal with this on a regular basis. )   Daughter can see through The Ex's lies and deception a lot more clearly than Son can; she doesn't buy into the whole "Your dad and ...