I've had such a good and bad week -- one with High's and Low's. Over all I think I am good, but I feel so drained.
W and I have been having continual skirmishes about childcare and especially about her flagrant disregard for my role as our sons' father. Oh, she can talk all she wants about how she never (overtly) denigrates me in front of our children or their third-party caregivers, but her actions belie her contempt and cold-hearted animosity for me. And she continues to lie to her lawyer and others in claiming I am not a concerned enough parent to be involved in making decisions for our sons.
I talked to my attorney of Friday. She told me what she had been hearing from W's lawyer. She also gave me a point by point analysis of W's counter-proposal in drafting a separation agreement (SA) between us -- specifically noting which clauses that we had put in that they had decided to cut out.
I gave my L more facts and details to use in our next draft of the SA. She heard my perspective on the diatribe that W and her L were spewing, and said she would address some of these again with W's L. She also mentioned to me that she thought it might be a good idea that we suggest to them utilizing a parenting coordinator, for the times like this where we can't seem to see eye-to-eye regarding the raising of our children. My L said she would mention this to W's L.
Karen, I didn't respond to W's voicemail, but I did respond later to her follow-up message sent via email: This weekend W sent me an email that re-iterated her warped view of how she sees me, stating that I have only now become concerned with the changing of S8 and S4's daycare just for spite -- out of hatred for her and her mother. She again threatened me directly that she would seek litigation against me if I did not sign her agreement (basically asking me to capitulate to her terms). However it was also seemed to me her L had said something to her about how not even informing the father of her children was not going to look good for her. That sparked a number of emails where she I feel she only "entertained" my objections but still refused to give them any weight -- continuing to change the story to suit her latest ends. She lies and distorts with such ease now.
I would like to believe that a parenting coordinator would magically solve these disputes. That would be nice. But when W won't even concede that with few exceptions a child's father has every right to lead and make decisions for his child as the mother does, then W will make up whatever rationale she needs to ignore even a third party "referee". I seriously doubt she would comply in good faith.
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My brother contacted me Friday evening. The litter-mate to our late dog, Duncan, just passed away too. She, Paisley was her name, seemed to be in very good health when we saw her just about a month ago now. But my brother said it was cancer and she had to be put to sleep. That was so fast, so sudden. It was like a timer went off in their bodies and then they're gone. I have not told my S's yet that Duncan's sister is now gone too.
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I have been working for the last couple of weeks helping S8 design, build and ready his entry in our cub scout pack's annual Pinewood Derby (PWD). S8 is an absolute car nut -- he loves vehicles of all sorts, anything that "goes" or has wheels is his greatest interest. So when we joined the scouts, the derby was the one major event he was so very charged up for.
I let him design the car entirely, only helping him to clean up some of the details to stay within the pack's PWD rules. He helped cut the body out (as much as he could before he got tired from the Coping saw), sand and paint the car. I did most of the shaping (using power tools) and distributed the added weights to bring it up to the maximum allowed overall weight. He applied the decals and final personalizing touches.
Well, the surprising thing is that he actually won First Place, among 36 other Wolf and Bear cub scout entrants! I could see that in all four of his heats he did very well. And his final heat set a track record. But there were so many well-designed and very fast cars out there that I was shocked when it was announced he had made the top spot. I had estimated he was in the top ten by his various times, but this was amazing. Not bad for his first try.
I am so proud of him. I told him that he was going to design all his own cars, from now on. Never again will I question his design decisions (I had certainly let him have it his way, but that didn't stop me from making suggestions.) In fact, I told W I was going to frame his initial design drawing, as crude as it was, because S8 could end up being an automotive design engineer if he puts his mind to it.
I had built a second car for the "Open" class competition. Open class was for the fathers, siblings and other family members to compete and get their own fill of the experience, without interfering with the scout's efforts. I decided that the diplomatic solution would be to build a car that S4 could call his own. S4, when asked, what he wanted for a vehicle to enter, being a big Batman fan, said "the Batmobile". He wanted it to look like one of the batmobiles he has seen in the animated cartoons. So that's what we did. In the end this car didn't win any awards for speed, but it did garner us a trophy for for "Most Unique Design" in the Open Class. S4 was so charged up to have won his first ever trophy of his own.
S8 is now beside himself because now his car gets to compete in the district race. He wants so badly to play with his creation, but now he can't because it needs to be kept safe until the next race. Oh well...
