Monday, March 9, 2009

Deep Breath In ... Let out slowly ...

Count to 10 or whatever number it takes to keep you from ripping your Ex a new one. Oh I am Angry tonight. Angry with a capital A!! I have not been this angry with him in ... well to be honest I can't remember. I have been annoyed and upset but this was one of those moments where I had to walk out to my car and scream at the top of my lungs ... so I did not take it out on my kids.

GRR .... This wonderful fight was over homework. I don't normally have the kids Mon, Tues and Wed nights but this week I asked to switch days so I could have a weekend to myself and go out of town. These 3 nights just happen to be the Big homework nights for Turtle. Thursday nights she usually has one page of work and nightly reading. Tonight she tried to tell me that she only had one math sheet to do. Uh huh sure ya do. After dinner I made her bring me her notebook so I could go through it. Sure enough I found 5 assignments not started or not finished. When I questioned her she told me they hadn't started it yet, he (the teacher) told them to do half of the page, or oh that one is do Thursday. I then asked where her other stuff was. This is when she shows me the late assignment sheet .... I knew she had one my mom radar was going off full force.

4 weeks behind on nightly reading and 13 missing assignments. WTF?? I am of course upset with her for lying but even more upset with my ex. She was behind on assignments last week also. The only reason I knew that was because the teacher left me a voicemail. GRR
So when I call my ex to talk to him about it he of course thinks I am attacking him (which according to him I always do. I have never been good at communicating.) He won't let me finish a sentence and when I try to explain exactly what she is missing and he yells at me to SHUT UP and then proceeds to hang the phone up on me.

It took everything for me not to call his ass back and yell at him. No need to cause he called me 5 minutes later to yell at me some more. Arguement went from homework, to his and his girlfriends desicion to give Little Man melatonin the nights he is there (cause he won't go to bed), to how I don't know how to communicate and always attack him. The entire time his girlfriend was in the background yapping at him. After I calmly tried to explain the homework stuff and why I was so angry he and his girlfriend suggest that Turtle come live with them for a few weeks. WTF?? Are you kidding? To make sure she gets her homework done ... like I was the parent she was with on homework nights. Like I am the reason she is so far behind. Yes yes I know I have a duty to check things when she is here and I do ... I guess not good enough. :(

After we hung up all I wanted was to go smoke (which I quit doing in November) and to drink a beer to calm down. Knowing that neither one of those has never or will ever solve my problems I proceeded to the next best option of explaining to my kids (in the best most calmest way I could) that I needed to take a moment outside by myself. Gave them each instructions on what they needed to do to get ready for bed. I grabbed my keys and my phone walked out to my car, got in it and screamed at the top of my lungs. I may have growled some also. I admit to hitting the steering wheel a few times also. Tried to call my mom who did not answer. Asked for God to help me stay calm then came back in and took my anger out on the basket of laundry that needed to be folded.

I have so many things I want to say. I wish I had hours upon hours to write all of the things that are in me as I know that it would help but tonight that is not an option.

So much for that inner peace I have been feeling :( Right now as much as I believe kids should have a dad in their lives I really don't care and I wish that my kids lived with me full time. Since that is not an option I am left to try my best at leading them down the correct path ... damn I hope its the path I am already on. ;) I am breathing ... and counting ...


Get mad, then get over it. ~Colin Powell


Do not teach your children never to be angry; teach them how to be angry. ~Lyman Abbott

4 comments:

jeanie said...

Oh my - that would certainly set of a few alarms with me - both at it happening AND at their reaction to it happening.

Good luck on finding a way to get it back on track for your little one.

WonderMom said...

No advice but hang in there. Sounds like you handled it pretty well...I would have gone off the deep end!

MindyMom said...

It really chaps my ass when my ex portrays himself as a better parent. Menawhile he hasn't actually parented at all but rather counter-parented.

Hope you an get your daughter caught up and once again - great quotes!

said...

Let it out girl. Vent away...