And then there was none.

I'm marking down the last 13 minutes K is here with us. The ex's dad is going to be coming to pick him up from us tomorrow and I'm sure this will probably be taking place while I am at work.

She called again today. The conversations between she and Kaleb usually are silence on his end while she blah blah blah's in his ear. I normally know how this goes. 10 year old boys are not the most verbal of creatures.

So now we wait and see when we get to see him again. I think the Hubs and I are both apprehensive about how rude she will be when we ask to take him again. The official weekend we are supposed to get him next falls on her birthday weekend so we are pretty sure that she will say no. The next weekend we will want him in Labor Day Weekend which would be the exact following weekend. I just hate the fact that we have to worry if she will allow us access to him.  We always let her go with him and even prompted her to take him regardless of what drugs she may be on. We were fortunate before that most of the time she saw him was in the company of one family member or another.

The last 2 weeks with Kaleb have been amazing. He's the kid that I raised. The spawn that showed up about 3 years ago who was disrespectful, abusive to his sister and stole from his parents seems to be gone. The kid who seemed to lie just to lie even about the smallest of things has seemed to gone back to where he came from. It's only a shame that I can't get this kid to come live in my house again.

K wants to spend his birthday and Christmas day with us this year. His words exactly were "since I was with Mommy last year I want to be with you guys this years." The only suggestion we could make was that he asked his mom to come these dates. It's not fair for the ownership to have to be on a 10 year old boy but we explained that after our fight with her the other night we are afraid to ask for time with him for fear that she will say no.


I think this would be the time we will need to go through the court system and get something official in writing for visitation. The only thing we have i their divorce decree showing that we have full coverage with the standard every other weekend and Wednesday's set out for her visitation schedule. Ideally, we would be adults and just reverse this to work where we wouldn't have to go to court but well....considering the source she won't be an adult.

I think my main issue with her is that she expects to be able to treat my husband with absolutely no respect. She calls him names and everything. She's tried to call the shots with us our entire marriage and quite frankly we do not need a third person in a marriage of two people. The husband is entirely too passive to put her in her place and while I am an Alpha female trying to talk sence into her is like trying to teach it to my dog.

I just keep reminding myself that I've dealt with her for the last 7 years I can deal for the next 7 when Kaleb turns 18 and she no longer has any kind of pull. Pray that I have the patience to do this and things get easier.

those who live in glass houses

I'm just saying.  If you're a former stripper with a history of drug use and rumored prostitution you shouldn't make threats. Also, if you're a 5 time convicted felon with a recent arrest for drunk driving you shouldn't threaten bodily injury to someone. Because I WILL call the cops on you.

Boy did we have baby mama drama.  So the ex wife has called 6 times between today and yesterday. We gave Kaleb the option of calling her back because he's  10 year old boy. The don't like talking on the phone.  When Hubbs tried to ask her to please respect their time together she of course went all white trash crazy like she does. Because we all know that you accomplish things by screaming at the person on the other end of the phone.  All it does is prove you lack the mental resources to converse like an intellectual person.

Screaming and yelling resulted in Hubbs standing up to her. This escalates to you her convicted felon husband threatening Hubbs. Which really??? What purpose does it serve for you to threaten to beat up the father of your step son? Or say and I quote "by the time I'm done with you, you won't even have custody of yourself."

Kaleb then called and left her a voicemail because they hung up and refused to answer our phone calls because The Thug threatened to come to our house to get him today when we have him for another week. Hence, I will call the cops on you......anywho he wanted his 2nd week with us.

I then called her to try to have a civilized even tone conversation.  And let me tell you folks when dealing with one of those who is fresh out the trailer park and riled up it's best to use an even tone. Not that this helps in placating the attacker, it just goes to show you can have a one sided conversation at an even tone. Let's just say even tone didn't work. I ended up getting called fat, a bitch, a whore, the c word, and told I had a horse mouth.  Then I was accused of "effing" her husband before they were divorced.  I reminded said upset Lot Lizard that I too could go Alpha female and scream and cuss and talk over someone but it would not result in any progress.  The summarize our conversation....verbal abuse, my pointing out that she was an absentee parent and I raised her kid without her in the picture for 7 years to her agreeing to meet us at 6 on Friday. I let it be apparent her husband was not welcome on my property. She said she doesn't drive. My guess is her license is suspended. I advised The Thug may stand in the street but he will not come on my property.

Random fact, in Texas trespassers can be shot if a threatening individual enters the premises with intent to inflict harm.  I think...I may be making that up.  Google it if you really care.

So now we are looking to find a police officer for the city of Dallas to be there when we meet to keep the peace.

Also, we have full legal custody of Kaleb right now. I would hate to have to keep him with us even though he wants to stay living with her so that we will be able to co exist in peace. Kaleb graduates in 7 years. It's gonna be a LOOONG 7 if we continue as we are.  We have tried to the nice game and I'm sick of getting treated the way we have been. 

On another note I asked Kaleb why she says he hates us and doesn't want to come and he said he's never said that and the she never asks. I just hope now she doesn't try to keep him from us. Kaleb didn't leave my side for the remainder of the evening which of course I don't mind.  I did enjoy telling him stories of him as a toddler. He blushed but I know he likes hearing stories about himself.

So far so good

K has been here for 3 days now and it's not going that bad. I think all of my apprehension about his visit may have been unfounded.....OR I could voice that and his behavior will go down the tubes. It's a wait and see kind of thing.

We picked him up Friday and he was wearing a white "wife beater" tank top. This resulted in my going "oh goodness he's been dressed by the wardrobe department of cops." It also appears that is mostly what he packed. We are working on buying him different shirts so he has something to wear out in public.

So he has Xbox live now. This is good news because this will be a way for he and the Hubbs to be able to communicate without his ex wife feeling the need to always have her nose in their business.

She's also called to talk to Kaleb twice since he's been here. I can tell by his face that her calling gets on his nerves because he's a boy. Most 10 year old boys don't want to talk to their mother's on the phone on a daily basis.  Most 10 year old boys probably wouldn't want to talk on the phone in a yearly basis.  Also, the ex wife says she doesn't have the internet.  I think it's kind of hard for K to have Xbox live without the internet.  I just don't see the reason she feels she needs to lie.

K is also calling the new husband Dad as well. I'm not surprised. Kevin and I were married for maybe 7 months before he started calling me mom when he was 3. I think she and this guy got married in March or April and have been together since November.  Did I mention he's a convicted felon?  I looked up his arrest record because with things like that you can't be too careful. It looks like a lot of his issues were during his youth. I'm a firm believer in rehabilitation. He genuinely seems to care about Kaleb.  The ex wife says it's nice to finally have someone to share her life with. Given our history I am fully glad that she's happy. She says they plan on many more children. It will be interesting to see how K handles that when it begins.

We've been enjoying our time as a family.  I really wish it would happen more often but every time we've tried to schedule a visit since he went to live with her she changes the drop off times at a whim or she will call and say that K doesn't want to come.  I just wish they would realize that he is the child and they are the adults.  They need to stop letting him run the show and go along a schedule. Kids need structure and routine. Also, hopefully when school begins again we can go back to a normal schedule and not 4 months without seeing him.  I also stole from another blog and implanted the idea of having a weekly phone call. I just don't want Kaleb to ever feel like we didn't put forth the effort.

I'll be updating again in a few days if anything else warrants an update!

I ask for prayers. I'm hosting  a student sleep over with a few girls I haven't gotten to hang out with a bunch so pray for patience for me!!

Divorce Care

Our church has a Divorce Care program for adults they offer to help people who have gone through or are going through divorce to better cope.

There are area churches around us that offer this for students. We have several kids from our student ministries who attend these program. I came up with the thinking that we should offer this out of our church for middle and high school students.

I got the info from the church who to talk to in order to get this going so we correlate with the adult programs. Upon emailing said contact they said they have a curriculum for the kids already but need someone to teach it. I go to pick up the information and it appears that this stuff is for little kids.

We really don't want to do a program for children. I even told them upon initial contact we wanted to do a program for the older kids.  Also, the person I am speaking with keeps mentioning a need for child care.  I don't want to do this in order to be a child care provider. I know that sounds terrible because we are all one body of the church and should help each other out but I want to lead someone not sit on them.

We have a meeting to go over the curriculum. They found someone who may take care of the younger kids so we will see how this goes. I'm hoping they are receptive to the plans the hubs and I have for this program and are willing to listen to our ideas and what our vision is.

July?? Already!

I can't even fathom the fact that it's already July.

This year has FLOWN by. The Hubs and I are more involved with our church than ever. Right now we are on a break from youth and our regular grown up couple's LifeGroup. However, we each have our own Bible studies we each attend during the week.

Kevin has been given the opportunity to lead the youth worship during the Saturday night services. This is super exciting for us. It gives us a chance to do service in our own way.  If you had asked me 5 years ago if I thought I would have a relationship with a large group of tweens and teens I would not have believed you.

I spend HOURS texting with one of the girls. Let's just say I guess I'm way cooler and more interesting than I've been feeling lately.

We were supposed to go on our first ever family mission trip to Questa, NM this month but due to conflicts we couldn't go. We are sending strong prayers to our church family who are leaving this weekend. Kevin went on a youth mission trip last month to Austin. I'm just saying.....I'm a weenie without my husband. That was a miserable yet fulfilling week for him and a lonely week for me.

Witten is on the cusp of walking. This fact both elates me and makes me incredibly sad. Why do our kids never stay little like we want them to?  I think Rylan turned 15 this summer. She's a tiny diva in a me look a like package.

We haven't seen Kaleb all summer. We haven't heard from Kaleb all summer. I've emailed him and have gotten no response.  The few occasions we've been able to talk to him on the phone he's hung up on us. I know we didn't raise him to be the way he i acting but you know what happens when kids are in environments without proper structure. We had an ugly phone call with Bio last night which was your typical baby mama drama. The Hubs stood up to her though and I was so proud of him.

This concludes my essay about my summer vacation so far.

babes and body image

Looking back through my life and remembering my own issues with my body is never fun. the two t's....taunts and tight clothing. I mean seriously...one time all of the boys in my 5th grade class called me bacon and would make sizziling noises.  we put so much emphasis on what society thinks we should look like we end up spending more time worrying about the outside we neglect the inside.

Today one of the 12 year old girls in my youth group announced she was on a diet. this girl is beautiful. she's tall, blonde and thin. everything society cares about. I'm not saying these things because I love this girl like my own daughter but because they are simply trie. needless to say we had a conversation about this. I advised that if she started dieting now she would begin a vicious cycle that she probably would never be able to escapte.  This is so serious.  If she's dieting at 12 it can lead to eating disorders and other problems.  I warned her of all of these issues she could face.  I also let her know that I'm honest and I care enough about her to let her know if she wasn't 100% in shape.

I know obesity is an epidemic here in America.  The sad thing is that it's EXPENSIVE to eat right. The crappy foods are the cheapest. I know from my own personal experience how hard it can be to not only train yourself to eat right but to struggle to pay for the right foods and the gym memberships to stay thin.

It's a shame that society can take a beautiful blossoming 12 year old girl and already at such a young age be worried about her weight when she should just get to be free and live her life.

et tu pta

We are moving elementary schools. this means the mini me is going to attend a brand spanking new school. comically it's on the "other side of the tracks" figuratively and literally. But I digress.....

So, the new school is forming a PTA. This sparks an internal debate.  While I want to be involved in the kids school stuff I am just so freaking busy.  Plus I did the PTA thing for Kaleb a couple of years ago......no really I did.....stop laughing.

Anyways, I paid my $12 PTA dues and didn't make one single freaking meeting. I'm pretty sure my absence wasn't noticed but I want to be involved. 

I have delusions of grandeur that I can start my political world take over at an elementary PTA.....just kidding FBI.

So, now I am faced with the whole do I want to give up a couple of nights a month and whenever they need me to be a PTA person.  Do I really want to deal with the stemming insecurity and resentment of snubs by stay at home moms that will probably all be justified in my head but don't really occur?

What do you think?