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um...hello?
monday, september 12, 2016
~*~
so, yea, it's been awhile. turns out taking care of an infant is...exhausting and time consuming. who knew?
oh, yea, after raising 4, i did. or i did at one time, anyway. honestly, life pretty much became baby over the last 8 months. and would still be baby except...he's not living with us anymore. he's fine, he's with family, but there were issues that just weren't resolving.
rk's father has been a huge problem since even before the baby was born. this young man told my husband he needed to talk to our daughter because "there's something wrong with her," but at the same time, wouldn't leave her alone no matter how often she told him to. we knew we were going to have problems with him just from that, we just didn't realize how much. after the baby was born, he was pushing to see rk a lot even though there wasn't any certainty that he was the father. once the dna came in, his attitude and the problems escalated. we wanted a two day notice for him to come see r, and the only day that was off limits was fridays because we do appointments, errands, and shopping that day. there wasn't any restriction on how many days he came to see his son, just that we wanted two day notice. hell, he could have made arrangements to see the baby several days in a row in one text, but noooooo... this was too much of an imposition. he should be able to come and see his son any time any day without any warning whatsoever. because rk is HIS SON dammit, and my house and my time don't deserve any consideration in light of that. keep in mind, he'd already given us a bad impression with his introduction and his stalking. he'd also already threatened my husband at one point. i don't remember what triggered it, but it all came down to this not being any of saxy's business. mind you, saxy is paying for the roof over his child's head and helping me care for rk, but it has nothing to do with him. the father also continued to pull our daughter into it despite her making clear (to us, anyway) that she didn't want to deal with the baby stuff.
i tried to talk to the father about this attitude that my time means nothing and that making arrangements are not an imposition (never having been a father, he has no clue how the courts work in all that and no idea that he'd get LESS time if we had to go to court), but he chose to walk away from me, saxy told him to stop being disrespectful, the father threatened him again, then went around, barged into the apartment, and attacked my husband. i had to call the police, who backed ME up, but at that point we knew we really had a problem on our hands. we chose not to file charges (as a result, no incident report), but i reached out to the family to help us manage visitation. the other grandmother's initial response was that the father and my daughter (who doesn't want to be involved, remember?) were good enough friends (um, they are? not according to what we were hearing; remember, this is a delusional stalker boy who wants to drag her into being in a family, so, yea, probably not) to arrange visitation between them. i tried to explain this to her in person, but she remained neutral.
so now i had to make a decision. there was no way we were going to be able to deal with this man's bullshit, and the risk of more violence was also a problem. no one can afford court costs, with or without a lawyer. and my daughter was still adamant that she wasn't ready to be a mom (and she's right). so, i decided that we'd give rk over to the father. for obvious reasons, this wasn't the choice we wanted. he'd just started a job but his previous job history was spotty at best. there's obvious risks because of his temper. and he was oh so NOT ready to take care of in a whole lot of other ways, but i wasn't getting any help with him from his family (who all pretty much don't deal with him, btw) and had been told that none of them could take the baby, so my options were limited. as it turns out, his mother wasn't ready for rk to go to dad either, so she decided she could take rk after all.
so, i have my sleep back, i have my writing time back, and i have a lot of baby stuff the other grandmother didn't want, plus regret and grief and missing my grandson who was worth every minute of tired and lack of time. but he's in a safe place. i have no idea how often the father is seeing his son now, but i suspect that if mom needs advance notice of a visit, he's arranging advance notice of seeing his son. because, you know, my time, since it's spent at home, is worth less than her time, and she's mom and probably doesn't put up with his bullshit but has less of a chance of him attacking her. at this point, i'm probably not going to see much of r, if at all, because i don't have my own car, and the other grandmother doesn't even want to come by and drop off a bag we used for some of r's stuff and the supplies a friend brought by for him. i did mention i'd be happy to watch rk when she's out of town, but she didn't acknowledge it when i stated that and hasn't called to ask if we would like to take him for a few days. i'm pretty sure we're out of rk's life now, which makes me even sadder, but i had to protect my family from rk's on the edge of psycho father.
non-baby things have happened over the last few months as well: four of my shorts sold, froggy moved out, we went to dragon con for a day, i've lost inches (though not weight), our finances have wobbled (but are recoverable), i closed dreaming in ink (which had been slowly dying for some time), the garden has tried to die and recovered and been giving us little bits of stuff here and there, and other stuff that has seeped from my immediate memory because of adhd swiss cheese brain (that really is a thing, btw). but i have time now, so i can eventually catch everything up and maybe try to keep up again.
yea, i know, i've said that before, but i can say that i'm unlikely to disappear for 5-6 months again. one thing not to expect from me is probably a new layout for next year: this one just hasn't gotten used enough. and, even though i have more time again, i also have a lot of stuff to ctah up on.
so, yea, hello! nice to see all two of you again! ;) |
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