That’s the weekend over already. Time is going way too quick; not helped by the shorter days (although, now we’ve passed the shortest day, they should start lengthening).
I’m still not feeling like ‘peopling’ so, where I’d usually make plans for my 2 kid-free nights, I’d intentionally kept Thurs and Fri clear. Managed to get all my categorising of emails done on Thurs, and just watched rubbish tv on Fri. It was great!
Friday (ie, AH’s day) was Teachers’ Only Day. I rang in the morning to see how M12 was feeling after the cross-country. Tried on AH’s, M12’s and M10’s phones – none of which were answered….
Awesome! A day to spend with the kids … and he’s in meetings …. !? Finally get hold of M10 and, lo and behold, Skank’s kids are with them. Clearly another advantage of them hooking up: they get cheap, easy babysitting services when work pressures take priority.
I needed to speak to Ms7 as she’d been invited for a play on Monday. Being a girl, her friendships can be so fickle: BFF one day; never speaking to that person ‘ever again’ the following. I call on M10’s mobile again and ask to speak to her but she says she doesn’t want to. I can hear Skank in the background telling her to ‘speak to her Mum’ and eventually she does. Really bizarre!
I’d borrowed a friend’s Speedheater so I could strip paint of the window frames in the lounge. I’d started before Melbourne so figure I really need to finish it before putting the place on the market. Got Ms7 for her 1-on-1 and had a nice evening with her.
Until bedtime. There was an earthquake at 6am that morning – a 3.8 centred not far from here, at a depth of 39km. It woke me up (not because it was large, but because it seems I have cat senses with early morning quakes). Despite not even feeling the quake, Ms7 is petrified. She wasn’t even this scared after the big shakes we had late last year. I ask who’s been talking about them and lo and behold … he’s a LIAR!
She won’t go to sleep without me so it’s an earlier night than planned for me.
Boys are dropped back and Ms7 goes to say hi to AH at the bottom of the drive. She comes back in tears as he’s driven off before she got down there. She hadn’t been that long so she’s hurt.
I speak to M12 as I’d had a call from his soccer team manager yesterday asking why he didn’t turn up at their game. They only had 9 players, ie not enough to field a team. Apparently, AH had sent an email to the team’s parents [excl me] on Wed asking if anyone else could transport M12 to the [out-of-town] game, as he had M10 and Ms7 to get to soccer and swimming respectively. Didn’t bother to bring it up with me. Didn’t bother to ask his brother or Skank to help. That would be too logical. No – he just didn’t go nor did he even let the coach/manager know that M12 wouldn’t be playing. The manager tells me AH actually got shitty on the phone, as no-one had responded to his email, and he blamed her/the coach for not arranging a lift. I’m so happy that someone else has seen the real AH! At her suggestion, we decide M12 needs to let me know if he is told he’s not going to his game. As soon as I bring this up with him, he tells me “you need to speak to Daddy”. What? “Daddy said that if anyone says anything about me not turning up, I’m to tell them they need to speak to Daddy”. Of course he did! Eventually, he seems to realise he’s let his team down and, if they drove all the way over to discover they needed to forfeit, they’d have reason to be peeved.
Get told two extra things by M12 today:
- He’d got yelled at and banned from devices for not going with the babysitter to pick up the other 2 on Tuesday; and
- I’d bought him a Powerade on Thurs after the cross-country as he was wrecked. He’d used up most of his water before the race even started, and the hydration stations were empty when he raced. I wouldn’t normally buy the kids Powerade, but he’d just run a 3km race and was dehydrated. AH gave them Powerade when they were sick – not even dehydrated – rather than proper electrolytes. So he took this as an opportunity to say “Mama shouldn’t have bought you a Powerade when she tells me off for using them when you guys are sick”. Nice one, AH. Nice putting the kids RIGHT in the middle!
I asked AH on 10 June if we could arrange these school holidays and he have them one week; I’ll have them the other. He refused. My brother emailed last week to say they were going to hold a celebration for my niece on the Sun in the middle of the school holidays. I’d already started thinking that I would get the kids back that morning and drive straight up to my parents’, thereby not let him control/dictate what I got to do with the kids on my time nor have us miss vital time with my family. I decide we’re definitely going and email AH. He doesn’t pick a fight! He actually offers that I have a couple of extra days to go. Unfortunately, they’re his days: he gets 5 kid-free days to work, instead of the 4 he would normally have. I, instead of 4 working days, his proposal would see that I only got 1. Hmmmm. That ain’t yin and yang. Or give and take. Or fairness.
Busy few days then. I think I need a weekend to get over it 🙂
Grateful for:
- Lunch with a friend today (with my boys and her son);
- Ms7 going up a level at swimming; and
- getting half the window frame stripped.
separation tears 