He's an idiot!

Oy! Where to start?

I'm frustrated with Mark. (I'm always frustrated with him, no?) But I don't generally dwell on it. I don't have the energy or desire to dwell on things that suck, so I usually just suck it up and let it go. But I'm dwelling right now. Things with him are piling up, slowly but surely, and I'm trying to not think about it, but it's not working out very well.

First is this whole Singapore thing. Did I write about that? He wants to take Chloe to Singapore in January, to visit his girlfriends family. Over my dead body! He is NOT under ANY circumstances taking my baby girl half way across the f-ing GLOBE to visit ANYONE! Thankfully, she would require a passport, and there is essentially no way he can obtain a passport for her without my notarized signature. He asked me about it - I told him I had concerns but that I would think about it. I don't have to tell him right away that there's no way in hell I'd ever even consider it. Chloe will be upset with me, but at five years old, heck, let her be upset.

And then there's the fact that he hasn't paid child support in 6 months now. I told him today I need a day when I can expect it. I feel like a collections agent. He told me the 27th of June, he'll pay one month's worth of child support, and after that he'll pay an extra $125. That means he'll be caught up by..... NEXT June. And of course, that's IF he pays each month, which is not terribly likely. I told Andrew I was going to talk to Mark about paying, that he needed to, and soon. Andrew said he'd just as soon sign papers to adopt Chloe and then Mark wouldn't have to worry about paying anything anymore. I love my husband. :o) I love that he loves my baby girl as much as if she were his own. He's a wonderful man.

So Mark's car is broke. Not sure what happened, but it doesn't work anymore. So he's driving his aunt's truck. It's this beat up old 1980's pickup. As with most pickups, it has 3 seatbelts across the bench seat. For whatever reason, he sees no reason to put her in a carseat anymore, even though the law says he has to. And if their whole family is going somewhere, she shares a seatbelt with Felicia. Awesome. He drives like an asshole, she's not properly secured in the vehicle. I asked him about it, and he told me exactly what the seatbelt arrangement is. I told him that's not legal, nor is it safe. Then I called the police. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do. I'd have to go to court and get a court order saying he has to put her in her own seatbelt, in a car seat. So in essence, I'd have to spend several weeks getting a court order to say he's legally required to obey the law. WTF? But the police can't do anything about it, unless they happen to pull him over for something else and notice that she's not properly restrained.

So my current plan is to type up some documents, one stating that she will NOT be vaccinated for personal philosophical reasons, the other that she WILL be homeschooled, by me, and I'm going to have him sign them, with my dad - who is a notary - present, to have it all legally notarized. Those are the two things I can see him using against me out of spite. Once I've got that, I'll look into court proceedings regarding delinquent child support and then this whole order to obey the law crap. I don't want to do this. I really don't, because it's a pain in the ass, honestly, but he can't just keep not keeping up his end of the bargain. Or better yet, he's welcome to stop keeping up his end, and we'll just take Chloe full time. It's not like he does her any good anyway, he's a terrible influence. Did I mention the whole "eat the crap out of you" thing? She told her friend she was going to "Eat the crap out of her" when she was mad. I asked her about it, she said her dad says it. Lovely. She's good, at least, about not saying things once she's told not to. I just don't make a big deal out of it. But still! What the hell is he teaching her?? (Of course, with my language so far in this post, I'm sure you're thinking the same about me! I promise, I'm much more careful around five year old little ears.)

Add to that the fact that I'm watching my little baby crawl around and happily destroy my craft room, and I'm just so BLAH right now. She's growing up so fast! How did this happen? It's exciting, but so sad at the same time.

:::sigh::: I'm going to go knit. And make my baby giggle. And stop dwelling on icky stuff! I'm usually really, really good at thinking positively. Maybe it's just hormones....