Stop the world, I want to get off…

Things have been pretty crazy around here, but good things are happening.

• We close on the sale of our house in about 2 1/2 weeks.  Eeek!!
• Our offer on a foreclosure was accepted.  We are getting essentially a brand new house - the original purchaser was an investor who never made a payment, and nobody has ever lived in it.
• We’re not sure exactly when we’re moving in to the new house.  Apparently when you buy a foreclosure, you must be patient… the banks are not very quick with the paperwork.  We’re planning on putting everything in storage and staying with my brother for a week, maybe more.
• Perhaps the biggest news, we got all the money back from Cruella… a week before the deadline.  My husband was astonished, as was I.  Neither of us really believed we’d be getting it until the check was in our hands.

Lots going on as far as the house stuff so I don’t have much time to post but wanted to give a quick update.

No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth…

I’m still here, just haven’t had the time and/or inclination to write.  So, a quick update:

• We sold the house on Monday, which just happened to be our first anniversary. 
• Our buyer wants to close in mid-August, so we have about 5 1/2 weeks to find a house, write a contract, get a mortgage… etc.
• It’s the end of the fiscal year (I work in state government accounting) so things have been crazy here.
• We still don’t have a signed order to end child support.  There is a court appearance scheduled for Monday. 

The biggest news is that I met with Cruella and the (as my husband calls her) “dope-smokin-love-child” co-parenting counselor yesterday.  It actually went very well.  I was very cautious about what I said and I do not buy everything Cruella said, but I think things may actually get better.  I’ll write more about that when I don’t have a deadline staring me in the face…

I hope you all are well.  I have been thinking about many of you and reading blogs when I can.

Crabby.

I haven’t written much recently because I just haven’t had the energy to focus on this.  I’ve also been really busy at work, not to mention I’ve been crabby as hell on and off for a few weeks.

Cruella is still refusing to budge from her decision on the summer schedule.  Pinocchio was very upset when he found out he wasn’t going to the same day camp program they attended last year. 

We are still undecided on appeal vs. returning to the J&DR court.  We have to make a decision within 10 days of the order being signed… and it STILL isn’t signed.  That means Cruella still has about $8500 that belongs to us, and she continues to get almost $1100 a month that she will have to return to us.  It’s sickening.  The orders should have been signed on Tuesday but the judge was on vacation and there was a substitute judge who wouldn’t sign them.  (WTF????!!!!)  Now the next potential date is July 14, unless Cruella and her lawyer agree to the way the orders are written (there’s still a dispute about who will cover them on health insurance, and some disagreement over the old child support calculations.)

A week or two ago, Pooh brought up the idea of bringing the stepparents into coparenting.  It was decided to bring in each couple first, then bring all of us together.  So Pooh and I went and met with the coparenting counselor yesterday.  He was not very happy with her and how she’s handled a lot of things.  I asked a lot of questions and I think she’s seeing things a little better than he realized.  Pooh tends to get very emotional and has a hard time seeing through his emotions. 

Interestingly enough, when the idea of bringing the stepparents into coparenting was brought up, Cruella said she wanted to meet with just me and the counselor.  She said I had been disrespectful to her.  I won’t even start on how little respect I have for her.  Besides the fact that she’s been very rude to me, she has done nothing to earn my respect.  I think this is all about the misunderstanding with me pointing out something wrong with her house.  I agreed to meet with them and that will happen July 10.  I am not going to let her walk all over me, but I am going to try to go forward in a positive manner.

Have I mentioned that I am totally sick of all this? 

Our house hasn’t sold yet, though we have had more showings.  We’re hoping that will happen soon - some folks came to see it Wednesday, then came back for a second look last night.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

We actually have some options.

Pooh found out yesterday from Lawyer-man that we can appeal the decision that was made on May 5.  If we do that, we get a completely new trial in Circuit Court.  We can present everything that has occurred for the last 3-4 years, up to and including everything that happens between now and the trial.

Our other option is to give Cruella a few months and enough rope to continue hanging herself, and then go back and tell the judge from Juv & Dom Relations Court that this is not working.   

Cruella is screwing up quite a bit already.  She’s stopped doing the chart that track’s Pinocchio’s diet and bathroom visits.  She and her husband are still smoking in the house (though she thinks that’s ok because they only smoke in the sunroom, which *is* attached to the house.)  Her husband has two cats which they moved in recently; add that to Cruella’s cat and dog and we noticed a distinct odor of cat urine on the kids and their backpacks yesterday. 

And the biggest problem - Pinocchio may fail the 4th nine week grading period.  All last week and the beginning of this week (kids were with Cruella because Pooh was at training) Pin has been lying to his mother telling her he had no homework, and she was buying it.  His behavior in school has been abysmal, and his teachers are finally noticing the correlation between his behavior and which parent he’s with.  She also didn’t take Goldilocks to gymnastics - they went to a birthday party instead. 

Thoughts? 

Is that steam coming out of my ears?

I am very pissed off right now. 

Pooh had coparenting counseling with Cruella this morning.  They mostly discussed the summer schedule.  We think that a week on/week off schedule is the best for everyone.  It’s less disruptive for the kids.  It’s less disruptive for the adults.  It allows the opportunity for vacation time with or without the kids by both parties.

Is she amenable to that?  Hell no.  She wants to keep the current schedule (she has then Mon-Tues, we have them Wed-Thur, and they alternate Fri-Sun).  In fact, she’s already made child care arrangements for *her* time during the summer - the kids will be staying with her mother.  She didn’t bother to consult Pooh about this.  She claims she can’t afford to pay for the kids to go to day camp like they did last summer.  She then wants each parent to have an uninterrupted week or two for vacation or whatever.  When asked if she had any flexibility in this, she said no.

Pooh seems to have handled this pretty well.  I on the other hand, not so much.  I am tired of this woman dictating our lives - maybe that’s not actually what’s happening, but that’s how it feels.   We are the ones who have to fight her for everything.  It’s her way or the highway, and it’s all about her, never about what’s best for the kids.  The kids will be bored to tears being with her mother, or they’ll end up running wild all over the neighborhood.

Cruella seems to think that she’s only responsible for child care during her time.  Pooh thinks that if we pay child care, Cruella has to pay half.  I don’t know what to think.  I just want to stamp my feet.

I told Pooh to call our lawyer and find out how disputes are to be settled since the judge gave them equal power.  I like the idea of the arbitrator, like in Stephanie’s situation.  I think it was a really poor choice on the judge’s part not to make some kind of stipulation for a final decision when you have two people who so obviously don’t work well together and don’t like each other. 

I really need a vacation. 

Speechless

Actually, I have things to say, but for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to leave comments for other people.  I don’t know what’s going on - this may be some kind of firewall issue here at work. 

While I try to figure it out, I want to say thanks to all of you again for your support.  I am still reading blogs, but I may have to start leaving comments from home.

I need a break.

Sorry I haven’t posted court details yet.  I’m one of those people who does really well through a crisis or stressful situation, but as soon as it’s over, I crash and burn.  On top of all the stress from going to court on the 5th, we also put our house on the market. 

My husband bought our house two years ago, about 4 months before we got together.  It was a major fixer-upper, but it had what he wanted - a very large garage for his woodworking hobby.  It was all he could afford with the huge amount of child support he was paying out.  The house itself is not very big, but it was big enough for a single guy who only had visitation with his kids.  It’s not big enough for a married couple who had two separate households,  who now have kids there half the time and who want to have a baby. 

We have done a ton of work on the house - like a very slow version of one of those “Flip This House” shows.  We had our realtor list it on the 5th but say there would be no showings until the 10th, because we weren’t quite ready.  It’s still not 100% ready, but it’s ready enough for people to look. 

Anyway, I’ll backtrack to court.  We arrived about half an hour before our time so we could meet with our lawyer.  Cruella and Lurch arrived about 10 minutes before the set time and met with her lawyer.  About 2 minutes before court was scheduled to begin, Cruella made a settlement offer of 50/50 custody (essentially what we got.)  Pooh and I grabbed his sister, we’ll call her Tigger, who has been a great source of support and has a very level head on her shoulders, for a quick pow-wow.  We decided we couldn’t accept this offer.  We had to try to fight. 

There wasn’t anything earthshaking in the testimony.  Pooh testified first, then me, then his mom, then Kanga.  We didn’t have enough time to get Pin’s teacher on the stand; Cruella’s stunt with the settlement cut into the overall time the judge had allotted for the case.  I was not allowed to say anything that the kids had told me, which was very frustrating.  Her lawyer did not object to that last time.  I do not believe we were able to get in anything about Pinocchio being upset about not getting time with his mother.

The Guardian ad Litem asked me a very strange question - “what do you think Cruella contributes to the children, besides love?”  (I think that was his wording, but if not, it was very similar.)  I replied “that’s a very general question, could you be more specific?” but he just clarified what he was asking.  I said that I really couldn’t answer that as I’ve never been in her house and don’t see her with the kids.  He asked if I talk to her, and I said, no, that I hadn’t spoken with her since Christmas when she’d made it very clear that I was not welcome at her home. 

On her side, Cruella had subpoenaed the coparenting counselor, who didn’t take sides.  She said communication had improved.  I talked to her quite a bit and her goal is to get them to work together.  I think she conveyed this to the judge who decided that’s just what she wants them to do - learn to work together somehow.  The judge ordered that Pooh and Cruella must continue coparenting counseling until the counselor says they’re done.  At this point, that’s about the only leverage that Pooh has - if Cruella doesn’t comply, we can file a “show cause” on it.

The best thing we got out of court is that there will not be any child support and Cruella owes us about $8000.  We have to wait for the orders to be signed before the support stops coming out of his check, and who knows when we’ll see the money from Cruella.

Their first coparenting session after court was last Thursday.  Pooh went in and said that there are two things important to him - the kids going to a better school and being on his health insurance.  He asked her to come up with what was important to her so they can negotiate - of course, she needs to think about it.  They both agreed that they’re tired of court.  (That doesn’t mean we won’t take her back.) 

Cruella has already begun to drop the ball.  The kids are buying lunch at school.  She’s not answering the phone when Pooh calls the kids, and not having them return calls.  Pinocchio is acting out in school again and had a major homework issue on Monday - Cruella didn’t bother checking it.  She hasn’t informed him about when Pin’s next counseling appointment is, or what happened during his last appointment.

Pooh is frustrated.  I told him last night that he can’t expect her to change.  She is going to be the same lousy mother she always was.  He has to find a way to work with her if at all possible, but also accept that she is going to drop the ball.  He needs to choose his battles, and start taking notes for another round of court. 

I am so tired of all this.  I really need a break.  Pooh had to go to training this week about two hours north of here, so I was left with finishing things up in the house, and I’m all by myself for the week (which is fine, I’m just not used to it).  I thought it could be a nice break but with all the work on the house it’s not been very relaxing.  I’m not sleeping well either. 

To top it all off, Pooh (who is a type 1 diabetic) scared the heck out of me Saturday morning.  I let him sleep late because he’d been up late Friday night, but when I tried to wake him up, he wouldn’t wake up.  I checked his blood sugar and it was 48.  I’ve seen him walk and talk at 40, but I think he must have been low for several hours and slowly dropping, because even slapping him wasn’t waking him up.  I had to put glucose gel in his mouth (not an easy feat when someone is unconscious) and was about 30 seconds away from dialing 911 when he finally opened his eyes.  Even then, he could not comprehend anything I was saying.  Pinocchio came into our room after I’d gotten Pooh to sit up and with his help, I fed Pooh some candy to make sure his sugars came up.  I tried to remain as calm and matter of fact as possible so as not to scare Pin, but I was terrified.  Even after he started understanding me, he wasn’t retaining anything.  He asked me over and over what had happened.  We’ve since obtained a glucagon emergency injection kit in case this happens again - giving him an injection is a lot easier than trying to get gel into his mouth.

So, it’s been a hell of a couple of weeks and I could really use a long weekend on a beach with a fruity drink and an entertaining book.  Cruella is keeping the kids tonight and tomorrow since Pooh isn’t here, so I’m hoping that we get to relax some this weekend when Pooh gets back from his training.  Until then, I have more things to do at the house, and I may just go stay with Pooh tonight so I can get some freakin’ sleep!  Even with his snoring, I sleep better when he is there than when he isn’t.

Thanks again for all the support.  If you’ve made it to the end of this entry, you deserve it!

On 5/5 we got 50/50

I don’t have the energy to post all the details right now, but the bottom line is that custody, physical and legal, is split 50/50 between the parents.  Neither has any advantage over the other.  The judge is basically forcing them to find a way to work together.  She saw that Cruella had made some changes (like the kids actually bathe regularly now) and the co-parenting counselor said that communication between Pooh and Cruella had improved. 

I’m pretty much exhausted and frustrated.  Pooh and I have discussed how we’re going to make this work.  I also talked to the coparenting counselor outside of court about bringing in the stepparents to change the dynamic a bit.  We’ll see what happens. 

Will post more later on the details.  Thanks for everyone’s support.

Court Day is here

We go to court today at 2pm EDT.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  I will try to post the results this evening.

The pressure cooker turns up another notch

Ah, that feeling of court looming just days away.  While I will be very glad to have this over with, I do not enjoy the lead up of the last few days.  It pretty well sucks, to be frank.

Yesterday was a very eventful day.  Pooh and Cruella had co-parenting counseling again.  During this session, they discussed Pinocchio’s new counselor, who called Cruella on Monday to make an appointment.  (Dr. C. wants Cruella to bring Pin to the next appointment.)  Cruella stated during counseling that she talked to Dr. C., and that she would be talking to him again on May 6 - the day after court.  She did not indicate that an appointment had been made.  Pooh piped in and said that he would call Dr. C. and make an appointment, because he didn’t feel like Pin should wait.  The co-parenting counselor told him not to, saying that this was Cruella’s responsibility. 

This didn’t sit well with Pooh, as you might imagine.  The only reason we could come up with as to why Cruella wouldn’t make an appointment is because she was waiting to see what happened in court on May 5.  So Pooh put in a call to Dr. C. to find out what was said when he spoke with Cruella.

While he was waiting for a call back, he got another phone call.  This one was from the assistant principal at Pin’s school.  Pin had made a threat at school that was overheard and reported by a younger student.  Seems he was angry because one of his buddies wanted to play soccer during recess rather than play with him (Pin doesn’t like soccer).  Pin stated that he was so angry he could “blow up the school”.

While this was probably a very empty threat, it has to be taken seriously by the school, and we’re not taking it lightly either.  Two years ago Pin threatened to bring a gun to school and kill some other students, and last year he drew some very angry pictures that he wouldn’t discuss - he just started crying when asked about them.  He had been in counseling after the threat two years ago but the woman he was seeing wasn’t a very good counselor and she’d cut him loose right before he drew the pictures.

Needless to say, Pooh was now really pissed.  He put in another call to Dr. C. to get an appointment made for Pin, then sent the following email to Cruella:

Cruella:

I just received a phone call from (Assistant Principal)  at (school). Pinocchio made a threatening comment at school this afternoon. He said he was so angry that he “could blow up the school.” This comment was in reference to playing soccer with (friend) and some other boys, but it is indicative of Pinocchio’s distressed emotional state.

As we discussed this morning, Pinocchio is struggling with some serious emotional issues, which is the reason I took him to Dr. C. I was very surprised and dismayed that you did not schedule Pinocchio’s next appointment when you spoke with Dr. C. yesterday. I do not understand why you would choose to wait to schedule an appointment until May 6. Pinocchio needs help now.

I will not watch one of our children suffer in silence when care is available that is quite obviously needed. I have left a message with Dr. C. today to schedule an appointment for Pinocchio to see him as soon as possible. It is clear to me that Pinocchio’s frustration, fears and discontentment regarding his need for quality time with you have not been alleviated, and seem to be getting worse.

As soon as I have more information, I will share it with you.

Pooh

He also forwarded this email to our lawyer, who said “Got it.  Take care of your son.” and to the Guardian ad Litem. 

A couple of hours later, we go to Goldilocks’ Brownie meeting to see her and Pin.  The meeting is supposed to start at 6:30, but didn’t because the building was locked and nobody had a key.  Cruella hadn’t shown up yet, so we hung around outside waiting and talking with the leaders and another parent.  A little after 7, we were all getting ready to leave since a key still hadn’t arrived, when Cruella pulls up with Goldi and Pin. 

I basically stayed where I was, talking with another parent, while Pooh went over to talk to Pin.  Cruella told Pooh he could have “2 minutes” to talk to him.  Pooh was pissed.  Pin was very upset and had obviously been crying.  I kept my distance; Cruella looked very displeased and I really didn’t want to make the situation any worse.  While Pooh was talking to Pin, Cruella stood a short distance away and kept calling “Pinocchio, let’s go.”  It was not a good scene.  They finished talking and Pin came over for a hug and told me that it was the worst day of his life, and that he had lost his favorite thing. 

Apparently Cruella told Pin that his punishment for making this threat was that she was taking away his Game Boy indefinitely.  Yeah, that’s great - punish the kid for crying out that he wants attention.  He’s already gone to the Assistant Principal’s office and been grilled about whether or not he actually had a plan to blow up the school.  Taking away his Game Boy without really talking to him isn’t the answer.

I consoled Pin as best I could and hugged him a lot.  Goldi came over for hugs and kisses and Cruella started calling their names in a voice that sounded very, very annoyed.  I’m sure she didn’t appreciate the display of affection for me.  They left, and we went home, Pooh and I both mad as hornets.

Around 8:30, Dr. C. calls back.  He says he can’t talk long, but that when he and Cruella had spoken yesterday, they scheduled an appointment for Pin on May 6.  Pooh is stunned and says that Cruella had led him to believe that they were only going to talk on the phone on that day.  Dr. C. says that there was some question about the appointment time, but he had called her back and confirmed the appointment time with her.  Dr. C. said he would call Cruella today and make sure she was aware that this was an in-person appointment and that it was for Pin.  He also said he would call back Pooh today and speak with him more.

Later, Mrs. 4th Grade Teacher also called back.  Pooh had called her to get more info - the Assistant Principal doesn’t like Pooh, so she was very short with him on the phone.  The AP bought a bunch of lies that Cruella told her a few years ago and ever since has been a complete bitch to him.  In fact, when she called him yesterday, she thought she was calling Cruella, and was in a big hurry to get off the phone so she could call Cruella.  Anyway, Mrs. 4th Grade Teacher said that there was still a chance that Pin would be suspended for making this threat.  She didn’t feel that it was a valid threat at all, she thinks Pin was just mouthing off.  Pooh told her that Pin was very upset and that Cruella had taken away his Game Boy.  Mrs. 4GT said she thought that was excessive and didn’t want to see Pin be punished at school and at both homes.  We’ll see how he behaves today.

The plan for today is to send another email to Cruella asking why she stated that there was no appointment for Pin when there was.  Anybody have any thoughts on what Cruella might be up to?  We can’t figure out if she’s just losing it - too much going on, or she’s doing drugs or something - or if she’s got some nefarious plan of some sort.  Maybe she was planning on cancelling Pin’s appointment if the judge rules in her favor.

I’d really appreciate getting feedback from everyone on all of this.  Thanks.