I am on my way from work and FH calls me to say that SD9 has tons of homework because she didn't go to school yesterday. SD9 says she had a stuffy nose and a sore throat. (from allergies and BM NEVER gives her medicine like she's supposed to.) She seems fine today. SD9 said her mommy stayed home with her. FH is in a rush because SD9 had pitching practice from 4:00 pm (she gets off the bus at 3:45) until 5:00 pm and then softball practice from 6:00 till 8:00. (may sound excessive, but pitching practice is flexible and softball practice is once a week with games on Saturdays.) Anyway, so I say well if BM stayed home with SD9, why didn't she just pick up SD9's homework when she went to the school to pick up SD8? The kids go to school in our school district - BM and FH agreed to this three years ago, so this means that the skids go to a sitter after school on BM's days and they get off the bus here on our days. BM lives about 15 minutes from the school, but there's a county line between, hence the different school districts. So, anyway, FH asks SD8 if her mommy picked her up from school yesterday or did she go to the sitter's. SD8 says in a quiet voice that she didn't go to school yesterday either. Now, by this time the girls had been home from school for a couple hours and FH had been talking to SD9 about her absence from school the day before and SD8 didn't say anything, nor did SD9 volunteer the fact that SD8 stayed home also.
Okay, so back up. On Sunday we usually drop the girls off at BM's at 6:00 pm. Around 2:00 pm on Sunday BM calls to say she is at a cook out / BBQ just down the road from us and she will pick the girls up from our house. Okay, sounds good. Well, now finding out that both girls stayed home from school yesterday tells us that: BM drank too much on Sunday. I said to FH that I wished we had gone out to the car when she got here on Sunday and if I had smelled alcohol on her breath, she would not have taken the girls and they would have been in school on Monday. What's she gonna do? Call the cops?! She all ready has one DUI under her belt. I didn't even get a chance to find out what SD8's reasons were for staying home, because FH said he was gonna get to the bottom of this. FH and I figured BM and her new BF continued drinking when they got home Sunday and BM got up really late and didn't want to go to work and so used the children as a way to get out of work.
How do you disengage from that? My SD9 still has three pages of homework to complete and she won't get home until 8:30 and she has to get a shower also. I was half tempted to keep SD9 from practice to finish her homework, but I can't punish SD9 for her mother's actions.
Disengaging is so hard, but after I vented for a few minutes to FH on the phone, I finally had to just laugh it off with FH. I said, well what can we do? Absolutely nothing. FH says if it happens one more time, we will petition for new "school custody arrangements" where we have the skids through the week and BM can have the weekends or EOW, whatever. I am thrilled by this idea. It would make my life easier that way.
Okay, ladies, my keyboard is SMOKIN' and I feel better all ready.
This site is how I can disengage! I can come on here and vent, harp, bitch, (not nag - who'd listen?), and get everything off my chest.
WHEW........thank god I found this site.