Dealing with Mark. (again)

I love to watch my children sleep. Perhaps it is the fact that they have an almost unfathomable amount of collective energy that, by evening, has me exhausted and ragged, and then they turn into such peaceful little beings. They're just such beautiful little girls. :-)

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So I'm (as usual) frustrated with Mark, Chloe's real dad. He got fired from his job a couple weeks ago (again), this time for sexual harassment and possibly stealing. Therefore, he's not paying child support again. What he told me was that he had to put in his two weeks notice because his job was just so stressful that it was detrimental to his health. He worked at a flippin' shoe store. How stressful can that be, really? Anyhow, so now he's trying to find a new job, only (his words) "They all say he's over-qualified for their positions". Ha f-ing ha. Seriously, it was all I could do not to laugh in his face. Surely it's not because the interviewer can tell within three minutes of him opening his mouth that he's an idiot? Nah, that couldn't be it.

So he was supposed to have Chloe yesterday. He said he'd be ready for her around 1:00 and would call. (His car broke down and he doesn't have money to fix it, so I have to drive her now.) He never did call. At 5:30 I decided to heck with it and we went to McDonald's and took it to the park to have a dinner picnic and play. He called at 6:30 asking "What's up?" I told him I didn't feel like waiting around for him to call anymore so we went and did something. He said "Well, I tried to call you at 1, but you didn't answer and never called me back." Apparently, Verizon just hates Mark, because this has happened several times. Now, when anyone else calls, my phone says "MISSED CALL" and if they leave a voicemail it says "NEW VOICEMAIL." But with Mark, my phone company has a personal vendetta against him and won't tell me that he has called. Either that, or he's lying. Hmm. So he managed once again to try and turn it around to be my fault, which he does in every situation and always has.

It's just flipping draining to deal with him. He tries to make something my fault, and when I call him on it and let him know how it really is, he gets all pouty and develops this attitude reminiscent of my teenage years and says things like "Whatever dude" and gets all stormy and mad. (This is what I dealt with for five years before our divorce. Is there any wonder why I left? It took two years just to realize everything really isn't my fault.)

Right now, he's expecting me to drop Chloe off whenever he calls today. Except that the Olathe Sweet Corn festival is today, going until late this evening, and I think we're going. So he's going to call, and I'll just tell him I won't be dropping her off. I bend over flipping backwards for him, always making sure he has Chloe whenever it's convenient for him, and I can't figure out why I do except that I like to keep the peace. He hasn't kept up one iota of his end of the court-ordered bargain: he doesn't pay child support (he's 8 months behind now, if you count August.) He doesn't carry her medical insurance (and never did, though lied about it for a year.) He doesn't show up when he's supposed to to pick her up, and now expects me to drop her off. BUT he still claims her on his taxes (how is that fair?) And yet still, I do everything I can to keep him happy, just like when we were married. He's like a ticking bomb, you never know what might set him off, so you just tiptoe around and try not to do anything to upset him.

But I think I'm done with that. I need to muster up the balls to tell him I'm not going to walk his little tightrope anymore, that he can start holding up his end of the bargain or he can stop expecting to see Chloe whenever he feels like it's convenient.

---On a side note, Chloe's making a "Me" book, where she uses pictures of the family and then writes about them, with help. When we got to Andrew, I wrote underneath, "This is _____. He is my _____." She asked if she could write "Dad" instead of Step-dad. I told her it was up to her, and she said "Well, he acts like a dad, and I love him like he's my regular dad, so I'm just going to say he's my dad." :o)

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I'm posting two other pictures of my baby girl, because she's cute.

I'm not usually one to just stick her in front of a movie, but one night, after a day of just fussing and whining and crying (and probably teething) I was desperate for just half an hour of quiet. So I turned on a movie, let her sit in her recliner, and she's was a happy camper.


Silly baby is starting to climb.... she struggled a little with getting out though, once she got in.