"The M you have reached has been disconnected...."

[faithisbelieving]

Bill and Jeff....what a road it's been, right? I just had one week off from work and spent it all with my kids. Finally, after a few months, I had them in the house everyday. I took the kids for 2 days to Hershey PA. It was too hot and D7 couldn't take the heat. I took her back to the hotel and lost a day's time but I was with my sis and her kids and another friend. Funny: you can travel all the way out to a park in PA and the hotel swimming pool turns out to be the big hit.

On the flipside, as the time to return the kids back to XW rolled around tonite, you never saw someone checking the clock like a HS kid staring at it on the last day of school. I swear, as it got closer and closer to the witching hour, I think I could hear every gear in the clock ticking. I drove home and ...I felt terrible. I found myself fighting back a lot of emotion. XW now gets them and I won't see them for nearly 9 days.

Sucks. Funny thing is, the kids, I think, take it much better THAN I DO. Yes Jeff. I know they love me. My kids tell me that constantly. My son has me catching for him daily as he keeps his pitching arm limber. D7 tried coconut cream pie at Bob Evans in PA and loved it, so, hey...I baked a homemade CCP with her a la Emeril Lagasse. D7 usually falls right asleep and I stay up with my son, in peace and quiet, watching the Met game with him. I put my arm around his shoulder for a bit.

No more eggshells.

No more telling me that I have to put him to bed.

Just peace and quiet...baseball...and my son.

My daughter, well, we have a special bond. Sadly, D7 still makes some negative comments:
-re: getting on the phone to say hi to her mom, "what am I gonna say? Hi Mom. Goodbye mom."
-re: leaving, " I don't want to go home to that crazy woman." Yes, she said that once.

BUT....they love her and express it to her and tell her they love her and miss her. They should. It's their mom.

Finally, to Clinging. I never hated my XW. I hated some of the things that she DID. I miss our old relationship. I don't miss who she is now. Much of my stress right now is financial. I feel no stress related to her at the moment. I DO feel that I have to handle things carefully or "I will end up back in court" if that explains anything.

She is more cordial than she was during the D. She usually calls back in response to some of my texts where she wouldn't even answer me in the past. I HAVE gotten MORE parenting time than is written in ink to date. I DO believe that if she gets pissed at me for some reason in the future, she will use that time to punish me. The latest joke between us is that she usually responds with 'K' or 'OK'. Last week she responded to something I wrote with 'will do'. I texted back, "wow...I got 4 more letters." She texted back "I guess that's progress". Overall, we don't have any communication together outside of things related to the kids, or, my favorite, "where's the check?". "Mailed it yesterday."

Finally, I try to use what I have learned here re: being a leader vs a wimp. I find it disgusting to have to ask for extra time with the kids. So, instead of wimping out and saying, "can I please have an extra hour with them", I do the best to stay away from old stuff. I change that now. "The kids would like to go out for ice cream. I think they would enjoy it. It's hot tonite and they could use something refreshing." Yada yada.

I miss being married. I don't miss being married to XW. I miss being a family but I don't miss being a family under the recent circumstances. Do I wish that things could have been different and that my kids were living in the house we built and together under one roof with two parents? Yes.

But that was not in cards for XW and I. We are just another statistic now.

FIB