Understanding the Batterer in Visitation and Custody Disputes

Understanding the Batterer in Visitation & Custody Disputes

This link has taken me hours to get through.  I’ll start to read and something will hit to close, so I’ll end up going back to something else.  There are a couple quotes I wanted to specifically share here, but I would like to encourage my readers to please visit the link.  (Bolding is editorial – pav)

A significant proportion of batterers required to attend counseling because of a criminal conviction have been violent only one to five times in the history of their relationship, even by the victim’s account. Nonetheless, the victims in these cases report that the violence has had serious effects on them and on their children, and that the accompanying pattern of controlling and disrespectful behaviors are serving to deny the rights of family members and are causing trauma.

 Because of the distorted perceptions that the abuser has of rights and responsibilities in relationships, he considers himself to be the victim. Acts of self-defense on the part of the battered woman or the children, or efforts they make to stand up for their rights, he defines as aggression against him.

 

 

Those abusers who accept the end of the relationship can still be dangerous to their victims and children, because of their determination to maintain control over their children and to punish their victims for perceived transgressions.

 

After a break-up, the abuser sometimes becomes quickly involved with a new partner whom he treats relatively well. Abusers are not out of control, and therefore can be on “good” behavior for extended periods of time – even a year or two – if they consider it in their best interest to do so. The new partner may insist, based on her experience with him, that the man is wonderful to her, and that any problems reported from the previous relationship must have been fabricated, or must result from bad relationship dynamics for which the two parents are mutually responsible. The abuser can thus use his new partner to create the impression that he is not a risk.

 

He will often admit to some milder acts of violence, such as shoving or throwing things, in order to increase his own credibility and create the impression that the victim is exaggerating. He may discuss errors he has made in the past and emphasize the efforts he is making to change, in order to make his partner seem vindictive and unwilling to let go of the past.

 

He commonly accuses her of having mental health problems, and may state that her family and friends agree with him. (I got this only a few weeks ago, in an email my ex sent to my current boyfriend.  Quoted: “Nobody that meets me hates me and my whole family is dying for a shot to testify about Toni. She wants me to take drug tests and stuff? How about she takes some pysch evals? I mean really. She has many people on this side who will testify to behavior that calls into question her stability.” ) The two most common negative characterizations he will use are that she is hysterical and that she is promiscuous. The abuser tends to be comfortable lying, having years of practice, and so can sound believable when making baseless statements.

 

Mediators and GAL’s tend to have a bias in favor of communication, believing that the more the two parents speak to each other, the better things will go for the children. In domestic violence cases the truth is often the opposite, as the abuser uses communication to intimidate or psychologically abuse, and to keep pressuring the victim for a reunion. Victims who refuse to have any contact with their abusers may be doing the best thing both for themselves and for their children, but the evaluator may then characterize her as being the one who won’t let go of the past or who can’t focus on what is good for the children. This superficial analysis works to the batterers advantage.

 

Where persuasive evidence of a history of domestic abuse is present, risk to the children from unsupervised visitation can be best assessed by examining:

• the abuser’s history of directly abusive or irresponsible behavior towards the children
• his level of psychological cruelty towards the victim
• his level of willingness to hurt the children as a deliberate or incidental aspect of hurting the mother (such as throwing things at her with the children nearby, being mean or deliberately risk-taking to the children when angry at her, failing to pay child support that he has resources for)
• his level of manipulativeness towards family members
• his level of selfishness and self-centeredness towards family members, including expectations that the children should meet his needs
• whether he has been violent or physically frightening in front of the children
• whether he has been verbally degrading to his partner in front of the children
• the severity or frequency of his physical violence and threats, including threats to hurt himself
• his history of sexual assaults against the mother, which are linked to increased risk of sexual abuse of the children and increased physical danger
• his history of boundary violations towards the children
• his substance abuse history
• the level of coercive control he exercises over his partner and children
• his level of entitlement (attitude that his violence was justified, expectation that his needs should always be catered to, seeing the children as personal possessions)
• the extent of his past under-involvement with the children (e.g. failing to know basic information such as the child’s birth date, names of pediatricians or school teachers, or basic routines of the children’s daily care)
• his level of refusal to accept the end of the relationship
• his level of refusal to accept mother’s new partner being in the children’s lives
• his level of refusal to accept responsibility for past abusive actions (including continued insistence that relationship was more or less equally and mutually destructive, continued insistence that his violence was provoked, continued minimization)
• his level of escalation
• his level of inability to put the children’s needs ahead of his own and to leave them out of conflicts with his partner
• the ages and genders of the children (younger children may be more vulnerable to physical or psychological abuse, female children are at somewhat higher risk for sexual abuse)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A letter to someone who wasn’t there

I’m going to edit this quite a bit to remove anything identifying, but I’ve had the wonderful fortune to be in contact with my daughter’s younger sister’s mother.  (Follow that one?)  It might explain itself in the letter, but I when I started the email, I had no idea it would be that long or that detailed.  It has a lot of things there that I barely talk about anymore, but things that might help another woman identify a dangerous situation.

pav

I’m sorry if this has caught you off guard too much. I’m at a point in my life where I can’t have skeletons, I won’t allow them. Sadly, your daughter was only a concept to me and Amy until yesterday. She’s absolutely beautiful by the way. I used to think Amy looked like her father until I saw a picture of (AMY’S SISTER).

I’m going to tell you what I know. What you probably heard incorrectly, or maybe you heard the truth but with a spin. I’ve always looked off and on. As I mentioned, my son has two brothers, only one of which he has met and that was only one time. His father was amazing with his brothers, but for some reason, my son got nothing. The last time he spoke to him would be nearly two years ago, and he’s only seen him a couple times. He left me when I was pregnant, so I’m betting you and I have more in common than just a beautiful little girl.

I do have questions, but I would like to volunteer information first. Again, I don’t know how much you know, but you may have figured some things out by reading some blog entries. I have a separate blog elsewhere that I’ll share soon.

I believe 100% that (MY EX) is a narcissistic drug addict. I believe he is incapable of telling the truth, no matter how insignificant. I believe he only wanted a wife and a child to impress his parents. Perhaps in his own twisted way he loved me, and loves Amy, but I don’t think he is capable of true human emotion.

I’m not sure how far to back up. We were married in 94, and when we returned home, that’s when I found out I was pregnant with Amy. At one point he tried to convince me that I should have an abortion, but I couldn’t even comprehend of that. You get married, you have kids, right? I left him the first time when I was pregnant, and he wouldn’t come home or stay clean. I returned later that pregnancy when he said the right things.

I left again when Amy was three months old. Same reasons. I loved him, but he was not the clean-cut air force boy I had met and fell in love with originally. That lasted six months, and he moved to Florida to be with me again. We went to Russia to see his parents, and he stayed there to work. He has told me that he did cheat on me there, and when he was supposed to return to his wife and daughter, he disappeared. His parents didn’t know where he was. Turns out he didn’t tell anyone he was taking a week in between to visit Amsterdam. I decided to not let him back, but again, I was weak.

When he returned, that’s when he started dealing and transporting. I didn’t know at first. He told me he was doing construction work in Mobile and such, to be gone overnight, and I really did believe him. But then I got pregnant again, even though I had my tubes tied at (MY EX)’s insistence after Amy was born. He was actually happy, but I couldn’t stay pregnant. After I lost our second child, he started making more runs and I started figuring things out. I actually knew what he was doing the time he was arrested. I wanted to tell him not to go, but I knew he wouldn’t listen to me, and I knew when he didn’t make it home when he said he would what had happened. My grandfather and I drove to Mississippi to bring him home, but he insisted on continuing the lifestyle. And it got worse. Not only was he still bringing people into my house that I never wanted around my child, he got more controlling, not allowing me to take our car, even chasing me down 98 one day that I did manage to take our car to work. One of the last straws was opening the kitchen drawer and seeing the gun. He swore later that it was my stepfather’s gun, that it wasn’t loaded, but the only thing that mattered was that it was accessible to Amy.

He had passed out one day, and I snuck the key out to copy it. Then one day in January, I brought Amy and a load of “laundry” to my mother’s house for the night. I didn’t sleep with him beside me, and waited as long as I could to make sure he wouldn’t wake up to take that key, get my one basket of clothes and my daughter from down the street and drive. He didn’t notice her missing the night before, and didn’t notice the two of us, or his car, missing until nearly twelve hours later. I drove north looking in my rearview mirror for two days, scared. I had confided in my boss at the time, and he gave me a couple extra hundred dollars and my w2.

I stayed a week at a friend’s house, but then went into a womens shelter for six weeks. I guess you were already there by then. Amy and I were doing ok, and I don’t know how, but somehow the grapevine got back to me that (MY EX)’s girlfriend was pregnant. After months on my own, I let him talk to Amy, and then to me, and the cycle started again. His car broke down in St Louis, and I went and picked him up from there. He was actually clean in Minneapolis. The longest time I ever knew him to be, but something changed, and we decided to move back to Texas in 2000.

I kicked him out of our house again August of that year – crank. He found a couple speed buddies, again, people I wouldn’t want anywhere near my daughter. He never could come out of himself long enough to see how his selfish actions would affect her. He was ok for a bit, and Amy lived part time at both homes, again, one that his parents put him up in. They would come in like the calvary over and over again to rescue him when the big bad world or his “crazy” wife would make his life difficult. I only found out later that even though is parents gave him a three bedroom home to live in, my six year old daughter slept in a “room” he made in his closet so that he could have roommates and make money.

I found myself pregnant again the beginning of 2002. I’ve told you some of that, but it was a bad situation. After Brody’s father essentially disappeared, I was still trading Amy back and forth, and (MY EX) turned into the romantic he could. He stared wooing my hormonal pregnant ass, and I fell for it. Part of it, I know in my heart, was him trying to balance the scales for (AMY’S SISTER). Figuring if he couldn’t be there, he would make up for it by being a father to someone else’s child like surely someone was doing for his.

He was back in college again by that time, but the partying was still full force. He wanted to be a husband and a father to impress his parents, but it wasn’t in him. He quit coming home, started taking diaper money out of my wallet, telling me he fell asleep in the car.

Full circle, in January 2004, he tried to kill me. I don’t know for sure, but I could guess he was speeding like usual. Denton Texas cops suck. Even though there is a ten minute 911 tape of me practically screaming, saying that my son was bleeding (he had tried to get into the middle and got knocked down – his lip had gotten split) all they did was escort him away. When I asked the next day why he wasn’t arrested, since I was in shock the day before myself, I was told they did what I requested, “make him go away.”

(MY EX) has supervised visitation only of Amy. He didn’t show up to court that day, assuming he would get a standard order. This was over three years ago. He’s two hours away, and I regularly drive the kids halfway to meet his parents so they can stay with them for the weekend. He hasn’t yet proven himself to be anything other than the monster I know.

I was told once that it takes an abused spouse seven attempts to finally leave or be killed. I guess five is good then, right? What finally ended it was not the violence against me again but seeing my son bleeding. Seeing him hold him away from me as I screamed for him to give me my baby, with a look on his face like, you want this? When I was pregnant with Amy, we had a cat that had a litter of kittens, too many. One by one they died – only one lived. But one of the kittens was destroyed by a tom cat that came around. I won’t get into any more details there, but that thought wouldn’t go away as I look back at that face that day, wondering if he would destroy my son because it wasn’t his and he knew that was how he could hurt me the most. And he still does get to me by hurting Amy.

Anyway, because custody was set where I was most comfortable, and despite the fact that they couldn’t get a wage history and her child support is set based of minimum wage, I waited until Amy turned 13 to actually file for divorce. I didn’t want to hand him an opportunity to get to her. The only time I’ve spoken to him in the past three years or so was witnessed by his father, where he said that if I didn’t do what he wanted, ask the judge myself to lift the supervision, he would make things as difficult as possible for me. He knows this is the last thing he has over me, the last way to control me. He’s been living with his girlfriend for at least two years now, and from what I’m told by my kids, she’s a sweetheart. I don’t doubt it, and I would venture to guess you were the same way too.

I know I’ve rambled, but you might want to know what he said about you and (AMY’S SISTER). As you were probably given half the truth, I know in most situations I was too. When he moved back to Minneapolis, he told me that he loved you and that you two talked about having a family. That he confided in you how his wife took his daughter and left, and that you knew that was a good way to hurt him, by doing the same. That you told people he was being abusive since they would believe it, you know, since that was what I had said, so it was a good weapon. That you returned to your ex-boyfriend and disappeared like I had done. That he couldn’t even be sure (AMY’S SISTER) was his since you had been with him before and after. For the record, she looks so much like some of his childhood pictures that it shook me to tears most of the day.

To have your daughter be real, to see her, made what happened to me real again. What makes me cry is that there are two wonderful girls that he can’t bring himself out of his wonderland long enough to consider. And what makes me even sadder is the girls have never met.

I know my opinion is just that, but I think you were the smarter one. The way he fucks with Amy by his promises of change, from what I’ve seen hurts her so much more than Brody’s dad’s complete absence. He at least never gets his hopes up.

Yeah, I’ve really rambled. I apologize, but I felt you might want to know. I’ll answer any questions if you still have some.

(DELETED LAST PARAGRAPH DUE TO PERSONAL INFORMATION)

This saddens me

Gay teen’s family blames school for death

I understand loss, but I cannot comprehend the loss of a child.  I cannot imagine the sorrow the parents must feel when their son’s life was taken by a classmate.

But I think it’s wrong to blame the school for allowing their son to express himself.  Larry King’s school was more accepting of his identity exploration than his own parents.  I’m saddened for their loss, but also for their denial.

Ouch not as much

I guess I should update you on the great dr’s appt I had yesterday.   Well, great doctor, lots discussed, and I’m down about another pound, so those are good.  Bad was my blood pressure was high for probably the first time in my life.  I’ll blame work for that one.  All my blood tests were good except the CBC.  As suspected, I’m back down again.  Hemoglobin was a 9, and the last time I went into the hospital for a transfusion it was 8.  I have to take iron pills twice a day until my next appt in a month and they’ll recheck. 
 
We also did a flip flop on my meds, back to something close to what my rheumy had me on in December 2006, since thankfully my dr was able to read what I had been on in the notes.  I’m so thankful that the dr’s office in Dallas really did fax my records over since I hate whining that I hurt to a dr and it looking like I’m a junkie.  So now my daily meds are – AM: cymbalta, zyrtec, and my vit B stress complex.  I’m supposed to have a slow-release iron pill there too, but I thought I had some at the house and I didn’t.  I have to go back to the drug store this afternoon.  PM: mobic, ultram, and another stupid iron pill.  This morning I pulled out one of my lidoderm patches for my lower back too, and I think it might be working some.
 
What was neat was that when I told a coworker who was in the office that I had to go for my appt yesterday, and he pressured me into telling him what it was for, he was surprised.  He told me he would have never known if I hadn’t have told him, and I’ve worked with him nearly a year.  I told him, you don’t see me move too much from my chair though – that’s how you can tell.  He told me that I was always so peppy and stuff that it surprised him. 

And on another note altogether – Happy Clone Wars Day!  I’m taking my young padawan and his big sister to the theater either this evening after work, or more likely, after some back to school shopping tomorrow.  It’s Tax-Free weekend in Texas, but my budget’s so tight this year (thanks to my ex missing his last two child support payments), I won’t really be able to enjoy the shopping experience like I have before.  It’s probably going to be Target for the turkey’s supplies and a couple extra pieces of clothes, Payless for shoes for them both, and 5-7-9 in the mall for the teenager.  I figure after that much stress and walking, it would be nice to sit in an air conditioned theater with a huge tub of fake-buttery popcorn and some junior mints.

Ouch a little bit

It’s been a while since I last wrote about my health.  I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis a couple years ago, with myalgia (he never used the phrase “fibromyalgia” so I don’t either, even though my grandmother was diagnosed with it some years ago also).  I went through a huge depression, where I could only see a life of pain and obstacles.  It was probably my mother’s constant complaining about her ails that made me see that all that negativity would not help me one bit, that I had two amazing children to take care of no matter what my physical condition.  I decided I would not my “disease” rule my life. 

But I’ve been wearing down lately.  It’s been a little over two years since my last transfusion, and I had blood work done at my family doctor’s office probably six weeks ago.  I accidently missed my follow up appointment, but I called and rescheduled for today.  The thing is, she said they would just send me a letter saying all bloodwork normal if that was the case, but that letter never came. 

I did the back work and made sure my rheumatologist’s office in Dallas faxed over my records.  I know I need to be more aggressive in my treatment at the moment, even though I hate what it might make me look like.  I’m in my mid-thirties and in constant pain.  Most days it’s managable.  Some days it isn’t.  Those are the days I need something more than the four Aleve I take each day.  But without records, backup, it’s awkward telling a fairly new doctor that you need drugs for pain.  I know what it must look like.  So instead of pushing the point I usually back off, frustrated and sad. 

I’m still fairly active.  Not athletic by any means, and some activities are very restricted.  I cannot kneel – the turkey boy must stand up in the tub to have his hair washed.  I cannot bend too much, so I don’t empty the dishwasher if I can avoid it.  And there came a time when I had to stop playing Final Fantasy because my hands and wrists couldn’t manage the controller for any long periods of time (and everyone knows, you can’t just play Final Fantasy for a few minutes).

So wish me luck today, that I might have the courage to ask for what I need.  That I might eventually have a pain-free day.  In the meantime, send me your jokes to cheer me up, because laughter really does work wonders.

Peace.

I’m still loved, subtitled: I was wrong

I gathered my courage and called my Grammie last night.  I really wanted to hear her voice and know that she was ok.  She was very excited to hear from me, but one of the first things she said was, “have you heard from your mother?”  I put on my big girl pants and said that I hadn’t spoken to her since she said she was suing me.

My youngest sister went no contact with our mother back in May, when NM called her boss playing the concerned mother because my sis didn’t answer her calls.  She lives a town away from my grammie, and I live a few states away, unfortunately a town away from NM.  Anyway, after my sis cut off communication, she had gone to visit Grammie with my niece and nephews.  When my grandmother told my mother after in a phone call, NM went off on my grandmother!  She told my grammie that she should have defended her, and yelled at my sister for how she spoke to her, for avoiding her calls.  My grandmother said that she didn’t know how my sister spoke to her, she wasn’t there, and that it wasn’t her place. 

My mother hung up on my grandmother.  They haven’t spoken in a couple months now. 

I told her honestly that I had been avoiding calling her because I dind’t know what NM had said to her to poison her against me, and it turns out, my grammie felt the same way.  We talked honestly about NM, and lovingly about my kids and how she’s feeling and when I might get to come visit. 

I told my daughter later that I was so stinking happy that someone in my family could love me no matter what, and in the process, validate my feelings about NM.  She didn’t quite understand, but that’s because she has a lot of family on the other side that are relatively normal (with the exception of her father).  Sometimes I wonder if my sis and I aren’t in a fantasy world, viewing NM as the evil queen.  But to have others validate that, that was incredible.

 

And I forgot to add!  My grandmother told me that in all the time she was visiting NM, her visiting nurse (mom’s, not my grammie’s) gave her a clean bill of health each visit.  She told me that when NM visited the cardiologist and told him that my grammie has a pacemaker, she acted hurt when he told her that her heart was fine.  My grammie said it was like she was jealous of the pacemaker or something – her words!

She also told me that NM has isolated her from her substitute son, the one that gave her a cell phone after I had “taken” hers away from her.  My daughter said that she was worried about NM isolating herself, that she felt guilty.  We then discussed other ways NM has made my children feel guilty in the past, like telling my then-4yo son that if he didn’t stop crying she was going to have a heart attack because she couldn’t handle the tears.  I told her that NM has created her environment, and I wasn’t going to feel guilty anymore.

There is only one real food group – pizza

If it can’t be microwaved, chances are the turkey boy will not eat it.  I get it – I was a terribly picky eater myself.  He had reflux when he was younger, and I suspect he still does they way he chooses things without sauce, no ketchup on anything, and yes, I’ve rinsed off pork chops for him to eat.   The only vegetable on his menu is a french fry – not even a mashed potato is acceptable.  But what surprises me is his pizza obsession.  I know it’s normal for kids to love pizza, but I figured factoring in his stomach ails, it would be a no-go also.

I give to you acceptable forms of pizza according to the 5yo:

Pizza pockets – these would be the hot pocket version.

Pizza pillows – these are pizza rolls.

Pizza buttons – these are the enclosed version of a bagel bite.

Bagel bites, bundinos, cardboard pizza, and of course, pepperoni delivery. 

Every night, if he had a choice, though I do occasionally break it up with a corn dog or a taquito.  Is it indulgent?  Perhaps, but he gets a healthy-yet-cold lunch each day, and he drinks plenty of water, so I’m ok with it for now.

FFS It’s HOT!

If you think you may have read this somewhere before, well that’s because everyone in Texas and other lower states are saying the same stupid thing – It’s hot!  Stupid hot, as I like to say.  The kind of hot where you can’t think because your brain is boiling. 

We have four different a/c units in our building at work, and the building isn’t that big imo.  They’re situated strangely that the same two units cover our largest classroom and the main lobby, the third one large classroom to itself, and the fourth a small classroom and a back office.  We called the repair service out last week to replace a part on one of the first two, so we know they’re working.  It’s just that this building probably dates back to the Civil War (and yes, I’m exaggerating), so it’s poorly put together, poorly insulated (and poorly wired too for the record.)

For the second half of the day, I had a string of whiney grown men asking if they could turn down the air.  No – first, don’t touch that thermostat!  And second, it was down to 60!  When it’s 100 degrees outside there’s only so much relief you’re going to get in this building.  I suggested they hang outside for a bit then come back in to appreciate what we do have.  And of course, the coke machine picked yesterday to be a stubborn bitch, probably because of the heat too.  Poor whiney men had to drink water! 

It was cooler at the house, but not enough for me.  The air was set at 68, and it was a boiling 77 in the house.  See, I know I’m being a brat.  I get it.  But I was miserable!  First, off came the bra, pretty much unhooking it as I unlocked the front door.  Next the jeans.  I made the kids a microwaved dinner in a tshirt and my undies, and chewed on koolaid flavored ice.  That seemed to help, but I knew it was about to get miserable again since turkey’s bath time is after dinner.  I have these gorgeous vanity lights in my tiny bathroom…you can see where I’m going with this. 

After I got the turkey cleaned and cooled and tucked in, I told the girl I couldn’t handle it any longer, and got back in the shower myself.  Then I sat on my bed in my towel and my drippy hair watching Sunday night’s Iron Chef America, which made me drool!  Battle Curry!  OMGs it was incredible. 

By the halfway point of Iron Chef I realized I was soaking my bed with my damp towel, and I’m not a fan of attempting to sleep in a damp bed. I get seriously ooged out if anything is wrong with my sheets, and yes, I can tell if the 13yo has watched my dvr during the day because inevitably she gets some sort of crumb on my bed.  So I ditched the towel and the comforter and tried to lay as still as possible under my sheet, trying to will my fan tower thingy to blow cooler.  By judgement time, the drooling had passed my body temperature, so I paused to find a snack.

Amy was still up in the living room, watching Family Guy, I think, and furiously texting or emailing on her phone.  I’m not sure when she figured out she had internet access on her phone, but you cannot pry that thing out of her hand now.  Anyway, I flopped my bedsheet about me and headed for the fridge for a snack of shaved turkey rolled in a thin slice of muenster.  Mmmm.  My daughter looked up from the tiny screen for a moment and started giggling.  She gave me the most wonderful compliment I’ve had in a long time: she told me I looked like a Roman Goddess feasting.  Ok, so it was a sideways compliment, but I’ll take what I can get.  And with the phone in her hand…

 

Busted.

Reverse SADness

It’s Texas.  It’s August.  It’s 100 degrees outside.

I love my children dearly, but there was nothing in the world they could have possibly done to get me out of the house this weekend.  Ok, I’ll say that early Saturday morning we went to Walmart to load up on groceries for the next week or so, but that was it.  Try as I might, I could not motivate myself in any way, shape, or form to actually put on my swimsuit and walk across the parking lot to swim.  My daughter kept complaining about how dark it was in the house, but if I were to open the shades, it would heat up faster than a microwaved pizza roll. 

I have in the past teased about having reverse SAD – seasonal affective disorder.  Until this morning, I didn’t realize it wasn’t a joke.  Now I’m not here to diagnose myself, but I found it interesting that is a real disorder.  I’ve seen some contradiction as to what is considered “reverse,” with different sources calling the opposite symptoms reverse SAD, and some calling SAD in summer or spring reverse. 

All I know is when it’s this hot outside, I can’t think.  I want to stay in a cool spot and not move too much.  I want a freaking snowball.

Night and Day, and why isn’t it still night?

Turkey boy is home this week, under the somewhat watchful eye of his older sister.  The preschool was having their air conditioners replaced, and even though they had water activities planned and a lot of fans being brought in, I couldn’t imagine how miserable he was going to be, and in turn, how miserable he would make the teachers.  Can you imagine a room full of 4 and 5 year olds in a room without a/c, in Texas, at the end of July?  I took advantage of their vacation week policy, and paid the big sister a chunk of that instead to play video games with him all day long.

Because of this, both bedtimes had to be adjusted a little.  I wanted the big one in bed by ten, but let the smaller one stay up a little past his normal bedtime to try to even them out.  At eight pm last night, I pulled the squeaky clean turkey boy into my bed to snuggle and watch Iron Chef.  This is where I take a slight detour on the subject to ask where his nipple radar came from.  Is this a genetic thing?  I don’t remember snuggling with my daughter at this age and having her bump, jab or pin my nipple every freaking time she moved!  They’re my boobs now!  They haven’t been his in a very long time, so it’s time for him to leave them alone!

Okay, back on track again (thank you for reading my mini boob rant.  Not that my boobs are mini by far, it’s just that the rant was.  I’ll stop now.)  The boy got tossed into his bed around nine.  The girl at ten.  However, my five year old has no concept of sleeping in.  The thirteen year old on the other hand, would sleep the entire day if not for the telephone, internet, and video games.  She did well the first couple days waking up with him, but apparently Day Three was a bit harder.

After I put on my shoes, I crept into their room to whisper and I love you and I’ll see you later.  As i opened the door a crack, turkey boy looked up at me and smiled.  What a way to start my day, let me tell you.  He sat up in slow motion and reached his arms for me, so I had no choice but to go and give him some good morning hugs.  He told me he’d miss me, and I told him I’d miss him too, but he’d have fun today.  And then I had to wake the girl, since the boy was now awake.

She grumbled and scowled.  I resisted the urge to remind Madam Sleepypants that she had already been paid for babysitting this week, and instead tried to be maternal and encourage her to get up. 

She whined, “I don’t understand how he can get up so easily.” 

I told her, “He likes the world.”

She replied, “Well, the world is too early.”

I had to giggle on my way back out of their room and out the front door.  I think she really hit on something there.