Pass Me the Aqua Dots, Please.
Not that I need any help going into a comatose state. At least, not during the daytime hours.
I waited Saturday for a phone call from DFS in response to the cop shop's hotline, but it never came. Ben and I had lunch of Indian buffet and then walked off our misery at Target, where I lamented over the high price of toys and the increasing level of difficulty buying for my son has attained.
Saturday evening, Ben watched the much-hyped MU/KU game while I decked our halls. Fa la la la la. And tried to call Bob via db's phone, which I finally gave up on after eight tries with no answer and no return calls. By 11pm, I had not talked to Bob, I was pissed, and the game was over; but our halls were looking quite festive. I nixed the idea of a second, smaller tree in the downstairs family room, and instead perched my 2-foot flocked tree ($5 with any purchase at Hallmark in roughly 1998) atop the entertainment center. I festive-ized the fireplace with some garland, candles, a basket of lights, and Fire Hazard Santa (circa 1968). In the main level living room, I kept it simple with various holiday knick-knacks, our tree, and the ceramic teddy bear nativity (circa Hobby Lobby 1997).
Sunday, I woke up feeling lousy. I felt worse after I remembered we had to go to Ben's nephew's 2nd birthday party at 1:00. Ugh. Nothing is more annoying than a 2 year old's birthday party. Especially when the 2 year old is almost never told "no" and, in fact, "no" is the only word he uses with any consistency. And said 2 year old's father is known to act remarkably like a 2 year old when he doesn't get his way. Yeah. Good times. We busted out of there two hours after we arrived (in keeping with the "2" theme) and headed home. I fell asleep in the car and immediately after we pulled into the garage, I collapsed on the Klik Klak Kouch with Harley and resumed napping. I woke up right around 5pm, in the dark, with Ben crashed on the other sofa.
We left to fetch Bob at the usual time, both of us understandably nervous. But aside from being 15 minutes late, and the fact Bob reeked of cigarette smoke, the exchange was drama-free.
I was concerned about how Bob would be given the events from Friday, but he was in an oddly pleasant mood. I mentioned I'd tried to call him Saturday, and he said, "yeah, I couldn't pick up the phone, because I was in trouble."
Oh, so now my phone calls are being used as punishment. Nice. Only makes me wonder how the rest of the weekend went. I can only imagine. I hope for Bob's sake he didn't dare imply dear old daddy could have been wrong in any way during the Friday Night Fights, because I'm sure that would only have resulted in further punishment.
I'd been rehearsing in my head the speech I intended to give Bob with respect to Friday--I'm sorry he had to see that, it shouldn't have happened, it doesn't mean he did anything wrong, ad nauseum--but he didn't bring it up, and he didn't seem to be anything but glad to be home, so I let it go. Maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, but it felt right at the time. He took a bath (to wash the smoke stench off him, not that I said as much), we ate popcorn and watched Spongebob and then called it a night. And after requesting a hug and kiss, he told me "I love you, Mommy." Which has been a rare occurrence since his birthday drama.
Today I started the not-so-fun task of trying to figure out what the hell happens next. I called my attorney--he's still representing me despite my inability to pull $8500 out of my anus--and he seems to think we can arrange for supervised exchanges with a mere letter to the judge requesting as much. I called DFS--they did receive a hotline, but it was just a "we're mandated reporters so here's some info but we don't believe the kid's in danger" report, and therefore didn't require any kind of investigation or follow-up. (Great.) I called the Clay County prosecutor's office and was told to contact db's probation officer to find out if they are aware of the Friday complaint filed and if so, do they intend to pursue it. I called the PO and got voicemail. I called the local Monitored Exchange Program and found out (1) no court order is required for their services, provided the parties agree to use them (which isn't bloody likely to happen in our case), (2) they are limited to specific days/times "due to availability of staff." But I'll let My Fearless Lawyer handle it from here and see if he can work some magic.
I won't cross my fingers, though.
I waited Saturday for a phone call from DFS in response to the cop shop's hotline, but it never came. Ben and I had lunch of Indian buffet and then walked off our misery at Target, where I lamented over the high price of toys and the increasing level of difficulty buying for my son has attained.
Saturday evening, Ben watched the much-hyped MU/KU game while I decked our halls. Fa la la la la. And tried to call Bob via db's phone, which I finally gave up on after eight tries with no answer and no return calls. By 11pm, I had not talked to Bob, I was pissed, and the game was over; but our halls were looking quite festive. I nixed the idea of a second, smaller tree in the downstairs family room, and instead perched my 2-foot flocked tree ($5 with any purchase at Hallmark in roughly 1998) atop the entertainment center. I festive-ized the fireplace with some garland, candles, a basket of lights, and Fire Hazard Santa (circa 1968). In the main level living room, I kept it simple with various holiday knick-knacks, our tree, and the ceramic teddy bear nativity (circa Hobby Lobby 1997).
Sunday, I woke up feeling lousy. I felt worse after I remembered we had to go to Ben's nephew's 2nd birthday party at 1:00. Ugh. Nothing is more annoying than a 2 year old's birthday party. Especially when the 2 year old is almost never told "no" and, in fact, "no" is the only word he uses with any consistency. And said 2 year old's father is known to act remarkably like a 2 year old when he doesn't get his way. Yeah. Good times. We busted out of there two hours after we arrived (in keeping with the "2" theme) and headed home. I fell asleep in the car and immediately after we pulled into the garage, I collapsed on the Klik Klak Kouch with Harley and resumed napping. I woke up right around 5pm, in the dark, with Ben crashed on the other sofa.
We left to fetch Bob at the usual time, both of us understandably nervous. But aside from being 15 minutes late, and the fact Bob reeked of cigarette smoke, the exchange was drama-free.
I was concerned about how Bob would be given the events from Friday, but he was in an oddly pleasant mood. I mentioned I'd tried to call him Saturday, and he said, "yeah, I couldn't pick up the phone, because I was in trouble."
Oh, so now my phone calls are being used as punishment. Nice. Only makes me wonder how the rest of the weekend went. I can only imagine. I hope for Bob's sake he didn't dare imply dear old daddy could have been wrong in any way during the Friday Night Fights, because I'm sure that would only have resulted in further punishment.
I'd been rehearsing in my head the speech I intended to give Bob with respect to Friday--I'm sorry he had to see that, it shouldn't have happened, it doesn't mean he did anything wrong, ad nauseum--but he didn't bring it up, and he didn't seem to be anything but glad to be home, so I let it go. Maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, but it felt right at the time. He took a bath (to wash the smoke stench off him, not that I said as much), we ate popcorn and watched Spongebob and then called it a night. And after requesting a hug and kiss, he told me "I love you, Mommy." Which has been a rare occurrence since his birthday drama.
Today I started the not-so-fun task of trying to figure out what the hell happens next. I called my attorney--he's still representing me despite my inability to pull $8500 out of my anus--and he seems to think we can arrange for supervised exchanges with a mere letter to the judge requesting as much. I called DFS--they did receive a hotline, but it was just a "we're mandated reporters so here's some info but we don't believe the kid's in danger" report, and therefore didn't require any kind of investigation or follow-up. (Great.) I called the Clay County prosecutor's office and was told to contact db's probation officer to find out if they are aware of the Friday complaint filed and if so, do they intend to pursue it. I called the PO and got voicemail. I called the local Monitored Exchange Program and found out (1) no court order is required for their services, provided the parties agree to use them (which isn't bloody likely to happen in our case), (2) they are limited to specific days/times "due to availability of staff." But I'll let My Fearless Lawyer handle it from here and see if he can work some magic.
I won't cross my fingers, though.
posted by Mitzi Green at 11:24 AM
1 Comments:
Chin up, do what feels right in your heart, deal with things as they happen, prepare for things that may happen and if they don't, just let it pass. Keep on keeping on, know you're the constant that keeps Bob as consistant has he can be given the circumstances and just know that sometimes the trials you appear to be going through are tempering Bob's sword (if you will) for what he'll need in the future. Whether he needs to be there for some young person who's going through what he will have gone through, or whatever. I know you'll make it through in the end, it's the getting there that's hard to deal with.
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