Limited Sanity

Best line from Road House because it’s so fucking true.

I’d like to think of myself as a generally level-headed, easy going gal. I love my life and the people in it. Sure, more money and more free time would be nice, but I’m not dying without it. I’m content with our little family unit and the way life seems to be going. With the exception of one thing: D’s ex baby mama (HCBM) of course.

After the excitement of last Friday and dealing with her shit, she continued on through Saturday and again last night. Saturday was mainly more of her thinking I have a problem with her or am jealous of her and her life. I eventually stopped responding and I think she got bored from my lack of reaction so the incoming messages stopped. Sunday morning I was kind enough to send her a screenshot of the kiddo’s monitor, as well as details about Saturday being our best diabetic day yet since I suggested making changes to her insulin. I figured a “thank you” or something similar for the NON-REQUIRED update would suffice, but I was met with not a thank you, but a “watch what you feed her, this is how you do it, blah blah blah.” It was irritating, but motherly, I get it. Quiet the rest of the day and she called to speak with kiddo later that night. Uneventful, but awesome. Fast forward to Monday evening, daycare is closed and kiddo forgot her diabetic bag at daycare. Again. After just doing so on Friday. No nighttime insulin, no meal-time insulin, nothing. Of course her first reaction is to call and scream at D about how it’s his fault and our lack of disciplining her on Friday shows, etc etc etc. While he’s taking the verbal beating on the phone, I’m literally digging through the trash bags from the weekend, looking for her insulin vials that I replaced over the weekend, hoping there is enough insulin in there to get her through til tomorrow when she can get her bag. Thankfully I found both, but the search was in vain as the Dumb Beaver, as she’s so affectionately called, refuses to share supplies with us and hoards everything for herself. When asking if she had a back up, she just said she was covered and to not worry about it. Of course that’s all we did all night was worry, but we can’t change things that happen when she’s in her mother’s care.

Queue the harassing text messages from her, while she’s yelling at and texting D at the same time, to tell me that moral of the story is I should have let her parent her daughter. Bitch, please. You only wanted to blame your 8 year old for your failures as a parent. She’s EIGHT YEARS OLD and still a child. Yes, she should learn responsibility, but at the end of the day, you are still the parent and should be checking that she has her life saving medication on her. Insert texts about me enabling her just like D was enabled his whole life and he’s gone real far in life and blah blah blah. Now enter the Not-Nice Sam. My verbatim text reply to the enabling was:

It’s not enabling, it’s teaching. And why do you care about D and his life so much? We’re just fine. Worry about your own shit and maybe caring for your kid instead of how miserable or happy we are. We’re both able to financially provide for ourselves, individually, and have our names on the house and all bills together. We share everything so the only one “doing it for us” is us. Continue to tell the world how happy you are, it’s all fake. Stop trying to bring people down to your miserable level. Stop texting me unless it’s actually about the kid and not your feelings being hurt.

From the mouth of sam

Context for the financially able part – she lives in a $300,000+ house, multiple vehicles, etc and yet nothing is in her name except for the house she owns and is illegally renting out, without claiming the income. This was all done so baby daddy #2 can claim his 2 children at their current address, while she claims kiddo with D at the old address, all the while scamming the IRS and getting both child tax credits. She’s a winner, huh?

Anyway… long story short out of all of this… Sunday evening while we were finishing up the last of the 6+ hours of homework that was left for us, kiddo asked about talking to her guidance counselor and if we thought she should. We told her if she felt she had things she wanted to talk about with her counselor instead of us, then absolutely. She asked us to help her come up with a list of things that have been bothering her lately because she wasn’t sure how to word them. She also emailed her teacher 100% on her own, asking to meet with the counselor. This was also the first time that I told her I go and talk to someone about problems sometimes too and it’s not D. I hope that helped her confidence a bit. She just has to make it through the rest of today and she’s back at school tomorrow and hopefully chatting with her counselor. She wrote her list of topics and put it in her backpack someplace she knows mom won’t check and throw it away. She’s absolutely terrified of her mom finding it and what might happen because of it. Her list was heartbreaking to say the least.

1. Mom and always being angry
2. Having to be responsible for all her own diabetic stuff at mom’s
3. Problems with her middle sister
4. Diabetes in general – being hard and she feels alone

Apparently kiddo has a secret hiding spot she goes to when things get rough at mom’s with fighting, screaming, and yelling. How fucking sad is that. She talks to us about getting slapped or screamed at all of the time. No bruises or marks left on her, we check regularly and I’m not one to tell someone else how to discipline their child, but if one method isn’t working, don’t you think you should try something else?

All I can do in the meantime is continue to record conversations at drop-offs and pick-ups, save text messages, and keep taking notes of dates, times, and incidences as they happen in my planner. I hope one day we can get to a place where kiddo can either stand up to her mother or at least talk to her about issues because as it stands, they’ll have no relationship at all while she continues to get older and wiser to her mom’s bullshit.

Here’s hoping the rest of the week is uneventful! Oh wait… inauguration is tomorrow… let the games begin!