Well, my kids are watching 'Antz' and I need to de-stress so I'm sending my next installment.
H was late but rang me to let me know (180 for him) and said he wanted to go to the park as it was sunny today.
We went out to the park and myself, him and our 4 dd's had a walk around the woods and fields. He took some pictures of the girls together.
He talked about this programme he'd seen where they found bones of a dragon. I laughed and said there's no such thing as dragons. Then he and dd1 proceeded to tell me why they believe that they existed, like dinosaurs.
I said what scientific evidence have you got? He quoted the programme where they were supposed to have dug up the dragon skeleton. I asked why it wasn't on the News. He said he didn't know.
We talked about myths and folklore and how many of them we actually believe in (he is more open minded than me).
Every so often either him or me would have to say something to one of the girls about not playing in mud or going near steep ravines etc. Ocassionally H would interupt me or contradict me which I found difficult. I said nothing ad kept smiling.
He has a dominant role with the kids and it sometimes feels when I am with them that they are 'his' and I don't have much of a say in parenting. I don't know how much of this is my hurt over the court stuff, though.
The thing that really bugged me, though, was that we called our dd3 Lulu (a nickname for Lucia) but when I referred to her as Lulu in front of him, he said he has changed it to just Lu, as he says Lulu is babyish, and that he calls her Lucy as well.
Her full name on the birth certificate is Lucia. I felt really sad that he did that without saying - and I have never called her Lucy before. I used to have custody and was her primary carer, a stop-at-home mom while he went out to work and I breast fed her until she was a toddler. As you can imagine, this just compounded my sense of loss and anger at the situation.
I was DB'ing like crazy and controlling my 'jack-knife' emotions so I just carried on smiling and telling myself that this was our first ever trip to the park as a family since the split so it was bound to be challenging.
We found a hill with an amazing view of the town, so I climbed up this tree a little way and sat on a branch to look at the view.
Then I got stuck, so H helped me get on my feet again.
We went to this little shop and H bought me bread, eggs and chocolate cake. I asked if they were his, he said 'No, it's yours.' So that was really sweet of him. I thanked him.
We went back to my house and I got lunch for my dd's and then baked him some bread for his lunch because I figured it tastes better out of the oven than cold out of a packet. I said I'd run out of coffee and for some bizzare reason he said he'd got a jar of coffee in his car (strange man!?) so he sent dd1 out to get it.
Made coffees and drinks for the girls. He asked me whether I am sending dd4 to nursery. I said I didn't know so we had this discussion about that and whether or not I should home ed. He is trying to convince me, I am not sure yet.
He left (earlier than we originally planned so I didn't get to see that film with him), because he said he'd been a bit tired and stressed the last couple of days and wanted some 'me' time away from the kids. I was a bit disappointed but said okay. He said we'd do the video another time.
After he'd gone, dd1 told me she had a birthday party in 4 days time and I wasn't invited. Naturally, I was quite upset to hear this.
H came up on msn while they were watching 'Antz' and I asked him directly about the birthday party. He said I could come if I wanted, he just hadn't invited me because he lives in a different town, I don't have a car etc etc so he thought I wouldn't be able to come.
I said fair enough but it would have been nice to let me know and give me a choice. I told him I felt that he was more dominant with the kids than me and I was a bit unsure about our dd being called Lucy.
He said that as a man his parental role is that of dominant, kind of rule setting figure and me, according to him I am the nurturer, softer type because 'that is what women do' (his words). I felt better after he said this. He said that he just called dd3 Lucy because her sisters started calling her Lucy and it wasn't a slight on me, so that was okay.
I am going to continue to call her Lulu as I always have.
As a H, he's great, as a friend, yes, as a lover, brilliant, but I still struggle with his father role. I feel cheated out of my family but have to remember that I'm DB'ing for my family, so I was pleased how this conversation went and we ended on the pleasant note.
