It’s been an interesting week this week.
For the first time, I bailed on helping out. I’m not always home to help but, if I’m home, I make a point of making sure I go and help with lunches and laundry and all that after the kids fall asleep. It’s important to me to be a part of that, to not make Curtis do it by himself. But this time… we divided and conquered, he took Nolan to basketball and I stayed home and made forts and put together Lego with Reegan and Taitum. Then I read to Reegan and he fell asleep with Nolan. Normally, it’s Curtis who falls asleep and I end up doing it on my own. I won’t fight with him to get up and help. Last night, I was so tired and the weather gave me such a headache, I told him I was coming, but didn’t follow. At some point I woke up in Reegan’s bed (where I had been scratching his back) and I moved to my bed (still in my clothes). When Curtis woke me up to ask if I wanted to get in my pjs, I actually thought I was still in Reegan’s bed. When I realized where I was, no jammies for me, I just wanted to sleep. This winter has been tough on me with all the up and down and everything that’s going on. There’s part of me that is really looking forward to having more time to do things. I’m ready to not go go go for a little while. Curtis does it on his own a lot and I am looking forward to getting back to normal.
Then we had our usual Kim struggles… not telling us about appointment changes, and the school not calling us because she is the first contact. We went back to court last year because the school said they couldn’t call Curtis without a court order saying that they have 50/50 custody and that he has to be called. So we got that. And they still don’t call. They treat him like a deadbeat dad when he is sometimes more involved than she is. She worries only about appearances and not in the little things that we work so hard to do every day.
He tried to talk about sports again but she is “sooooo busy”, she won’t even agree to sit and talk to him. He said that he doesn’t care what they play as long as they get to go all the time, but we all know it won’t change and they will only get to play on our days and we won’t be allowed to watch the kids play “her sport” on “her days”.
The only funny thing is he feels like this new dentist got the heads up about her behaviour because they actually wanted his information. She did the usual thing of only being free on her days (which, of course, doesn’t matter if Curtis isn’t available, she’ll do it anyway). He said he got the vibe like this dentist was warned about how she is and not to leave the dad out. Maybe not, but it’s a nice thought, not being left out simply because he’s the dad.
And, by the way, we did end up going out for our anniversary – his idea. So it’s all a little better in our world. Even if just small victories.