In this house, I’m the Mama…

It may be too late to post this, and if it is, James, please accept my heartfelt apology. I don’t check my gmail account as often as I should.

I had a conversation over lunch last week with a dear friend. She and I often disagree with one another and, because of our differing views, we often have deeply passionate discussions. But even if we still disagree at the end of the conversation we walk away knowing we love each other. We’ve been friends for too long to let political views or other highly charged subjects get in the way. And I adore having those kinds of conversations with her. Iron sharpens iron, you know.

Anyway, we had a long conversation about James’ ordeal, and I’d like to share the way the discussion went, because I think it illustrates exactly why James is in this situation.

When I brought up the comments James posted last week, and asked her thoughts on them (because she reads the blog), her immediate response was, “He should just leave the poor kid alone until he turns 18. Then if he (the child) decides he wants to pursue a relationship with James, so be it.”

I was immediately taken aback. Really, truly taken aback. Mostly because I hadn’t expected this argument from her. I honestly thought we’d be on the same page. I asked her why she thought what she had just expressed. She explained.

“Well, the child is in a nuclear family. He has a Mom, a Dad, siblings. It’s a stable environment. I think that’s what is best for him.”

“How do you know?” I responded. “How do you know that it’s a stable environment? How do you know that they’re not child molesters, or abusers, that they don’t fight all the time, that they have a healthy marriage, that the child is even having his needs met? How do you know that James wouldn’t be the better parent in this situation? Just because he’s not married and doesn’t have a nuclear family?”

She thought about that for a minute, then said, “I don’t. I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really think about it that way.”

I went on to tell her that Family Court was in place specifically to answer those questions. I explained that the child’s mother, her husband, and her husband’s father, had successfully legally stonewalled James for quite some time, that although DNA testing proved that James was the child’s father, this ancient law on the Kentucky books was allowing the mother to keep James and the child from each other. I asked her to consider what might happen if the roles were reversed.

Let’s say that James was married and the mother was not. Let’s say that shortly after the child was born, James went to the hospital and took the child. Because he’s the father, you know, he would be allowed to do that. Let’s say that he and his wife reconciled, or agreed to stay together for the sake of their existing children, and the mother was unmarried. Let’s say he spent the next year of that child’s life denying the mother access. Let’s say that he passed his wife off as the child’s “real” mother because it was best for that child to stay in a nuclear family.

There would be outrage the likes of which we have never seen! How dare he keep that child from his mother! Barbaric! Awful. The public outcry would be massive. The courts would have no choice but to intervene. James would be villified for using the legal system to keep them apart. His reputation would be sullied. His name would be slandered. How dare he?

And yet, that’s exactly what the courts have allowed. Only in this case the child is being kept from his father instead. Is it somehow less impactful to the child? Since it’s only his father?

I then went a little further to examine James’ options here. Because the child’s mother wants James out of the picture, she is, of course, not asking for child support. But if she wanted him in the picture, if she wanted his money, she would have the right to ask that James pay it. She would have the right to request the DNA test, if James denied that the child was his, and pursue him for the money, garnish his wages, have him put in jail for non-payment if he could elude the garnishment, whatever other punishment the court might see fit. If she wanted him in the picture.

Because she doesn’t want him in the picture, because she wants to pretend that she can continue her life as it was before she met James and they conceived this child, she can legally keep him from the child. Does that make sense to you? That fathers, biological fathers, have no control over their own destiny as it relates to their children? That this man could either be fully responsible for this child, or could be kept from ever seeing this child until the child turns 18, at the whim of the mother? That seems like an awful lot of power to grant one parent over the other.

Under normal circumstances, they would have gone to Family Court, and likely James would have been granted liberal visitation unless she could prove that he was somehow unfit. In this case, the mother, because of the legal pull her family has, has acted as his judge, jury, and executioner. She has made the decision that James will not see his son, and his son will not see him.

That decision, and the fact that the court system is continuing to allow her to keep his child from him, is frightening to me. It is frightening to me that a biological parent could be stripped of his rights by the other biological parent. It is more frightening to me that this is happening to a father, because we would never stand for it if James were instead the child’s mother. I have two boys and I don’t want to see them grow up and face this kind of pain. Should they marry, or not marry, and be 50% of conceiving a child, I would never want them to go through the unimaginable pain of not seeing that child, not being able to be a part of that child’s life. I wouldn’t want that for my boys. I wouldn’t want that for anyone’s boys.

More than that, stripping a biological parent of his/her rights without cause seems to be a horrifying slippery slope. What will be next?

My last point was that, if the child grows up and discovers that his stepfather is not his biological father, he will have questions. And what will he think if James gives up? Will he believe that James did it for his own good? Or will he feel like he missed a huge piece of his life? Would he be glad that James just “let him be”? I don’t think so. I think it would mean the world to him that James fought to see him, to be a part of his life.

On the face of this situation, it seems natural to assume that the child is in the best situation, right? It does. Nuclear family. Mom, Dad, family dog, siblings, whatever. But it’s important to note that the only person who has decided it truly is best is the mother. The courts have not decided. There has been no child and family investigator appointed. James and his son have had no chance whatsoever to even explore a relationship with each other.

James is his biological father… of that there is no question.

The only remaining question, then, is how much power do we give mothers over fathers? In this case, she has the ultimate power. Why? Because she has a uterus? Again, if the roles were reversed, we would be outraged at a father keeping a child away from his mother. Why do we not feel the same here?

Please, urge the courts to give James his due process. Urge the courts to give James and his son the chance to know each other. Because that boy needs his Daddy, whether his mother thinks so or not. And lies have a way of being found out eventually. He will know eventually that his mother lied to him and he will be damaged by that.

In the greater picture, urge the courts to treat fathers equally. Don’t let them grant this kind of power to mothers, because all of our children will suffer.

An excerpt from an e-mail that James sent to me:

The Kentucky House just passed a bill that would allow me to re-petition for custody and visitation with my son. So I need your help. If the Kentucky Senate does not push the house bill thru before April 1st it will be dead.

Please call 1-800-372-7181

And ask the Kentucky Senate, Senate Committee on Committess, and Senate Judiciary Committee to push and pass HOUSE BILL 685 before the end of this session. Tell them you are in support of HB 685 and you support equal parental rights.

They will ask your name and address, and it does not matter that you don’t live in Kentucky. Please, please, please help me, for I love my son and want to see him. They take calls until 11pm eastern.

Please do.

And please check out his blog. All of the information is there–the good, the bad, and the ugly.

James needs our support.

Fathers and children everywhere need our support.

I went to a popular fast-food restaurant yesterday to pick up some lunch. Given the fact that I had a tooth forcibly removed from my mouth, I was looking for something soft and squishy, with no sharp edges. French fries? Nope. Chicken nuggets? Ouch.

Nothing sounded good, or soft or squishy, until I got to the sides. Ah, chili… and a baked potato. I’m not usually a big potato fan, but I like baked potatoes with cheese and bacon. The menu said “Baked Potato with Chives and Sour Cream”. No problem, I thought. I can order cheese on my chili, surely they can hook me up with cheese and a couple of bacon bits on the potato.

The conversation went like this:

Drive-Thru Lady: Hello. How ca’ hep you?

Me: Yes, I need a large chili with cheese, a large Diet Coke, and a baked potato. Can you do that potato with cheese and bacon?

Drive-Thru Lady: No.

Me: No cheese or no bacon?

Drive-Thru Lady: No. The potato come with sour cream and chive. You wan’ that?

Me: No, I want it with cheese and bacon.

Drive-Thru Lady: No.

Me: Do you not have bacon?

Drive-Thru Lady: No.

Me: (Wondering if she’s just lost her marbles, because they do actually put bacon bits on their salads and I KNOW they have a bacon cheeseburger) How about cheese?

Drive-Thru Lady: No.

Me: But you’re putting cheese on my chili…

Drive-Thru Lady: Tha’s shredded cheese, not melted cheese.

Me:  But the potato’s hot?

Drive-Thru Lady: Yeeeesssss……

Me: So it should melt eventually, like in the chili, right?

Drive-Thru Lady: (I guess she gave up on the conversation) $6.52 at the window. Please pull aroun’.

I did get the potato with cheese, no bacon. And the cheese? Was only like six little shreds. I guess that’s what I get for trying to muck with the drive-thru program. I should not have expected her to be able to think outside the box. I mean, it IS fast food, after all.

And that’s why she’s making $6.50 an hour.

I showed up at the oral surgeon’s office yesterday morning at 9:16. My appointment was scheduled for 9:15, but my driver (my mother) was a tad bit late, having gotten a whopping three hours of sleep the night before due to a nasty flu-like bug. Still, she managed to get me to the office in, like, three minutes flat. I was impressed with her driving for someone so sleep deprived. One minute late was pretty amazing. In fact, in Stephanie Time, that’s like 15 minutes early.

Anyway, I sat down to fill out my paperwork, excited that I was there by 9:16, thinking my appointment was probably not until 9:30. That’s what they do, you know–they tell you to be there fifteen minutes ahead of time to fill out the paperwork so you’ll be ready by the time your appointment actually rolls around, and I can write like the wind. So I was on line 3 of said paperwork, patting myself on the back for being so quick with this stuff, and a lovely woman burst through the door and barked my name. Already distressed at having to have the “S” word (surgery, for those of you that have potty mouths, not the OTHER “S” word), I was now upset about not having completed my paperwork.

As we walked to the back, she turned to me, took the clipboard from my hands and said, in a very sweet, syrupy, I’m completely annoyed with you, voice, “We’re just going to have to fit you in… since you were LATE.”

Huh? Late? By one minute? Seriously?

It took me about 2.3 seconds to snap out of my unhappy place and move right on into my sarcastic place. This woman could NOT be for real. Here I was, shaking in my shoes because I was having a tooth yanked out of my head, and she was complaining about one minute? Weren’t surgery places supposed to hire folks with some sort of decent bedside manner? This woman had the bedside manner of a drill sergeant!

“My appointment was for 9:15. I was here at 9:16. I apologize for the one-minute delay, but surely you could cut me some slack on that!” I responded to her as she marched me back to the room.

“Your appointment was at 9:00,” she replied, in her best “I’m more annoyed than you” voice.

“Well, perhaps you should let your office personnel know,” I snapped back, “because the word I got was 9:15. And here I am.”

She gave me a forced smile, and said, “Let’s get an x-ray then.”

“I brought the x-ray with me, as requested,” I said. “I gave it to the same folks that scheduled my appointment.” I’m not usually this curt with people, but I had been in severe pain since Monday, I was going to have someone pry my tooth out of the socket, I was probably facing some serious pain, I was already sick of Jell-o and was dealing with the prospect of several more days of it, I had gotten very little sleep because Advil only goes so far, and I was DONE with her attitude already.

“Yes,” she said impatiently, “but the doc wants a panoramic. Let’s get it out of the way so we can get that tooth out.”

Evidently my curt response to her made her think twice about her continued attitude. Suddenly, she moved on to sweetness and light, directing me to take out my earrings, getting me an envelope so they wouldn’t get lost, and even putting them in my purse for me. She asked a few questions about the amount of pain I was in, clucked sympathetically when I told her that it had been very painful since Monday, and generally tried to be a decent human being from that point forward.

Unfortunately, she had already ruined the mood for me. I deal with ugliness with humor and she had ripped the humor right on out of me, long before the tooth extraction had even begun.

Thankfully the entire extraction process was about 15 minutes, from anesthesia to stuffing my mouth with gauze. The doc was very pleasant and almost restored my good mood. The drugs helped a lot. Thank God for novacaine, is all I can say. I didn’t feel a darned thing (after the initial stick, which he called “a little pinch” and made me want to stab him in the eye with whatever blunt instrument I could lay my hands on), just lots of pressure.

The sound is pretty disgusting. I’m not fond of hearing the bone break and crunch at all. But when it finally came free, it was a little slice of heaven. It was instant relief. The doc stuffed that whole side of my mouth with gauze and gave me a dozen instructions for after care. The best part, I thought, was that he gave me both his cell phone number and his home phone number and advised me that, should I have ANY issues whatsoever, even after hours, I should call directly. Very cool. That pretty much made up for Senorita Stuffy Pants.

The rest of the day went as I expected. The local wore off and it was pretty painful, although it never reached the level of pain I was in on Monday. I took some Advil to keep the worst of it at bay. I ate a lot of popsicles, which made Freddy very happy since he was home with me and matched me pop for pop. And I slept last night. The deep, sound sleep of someone that has been up all night with tooth pain for several days.

By this morning? No Advil. Just a little pain. There is definitely a BIG hole back there, and everything seems to get stuck in it, but I am so gloriously, deliriously relieved at not feeling that horrid, throbbing, infected pain anymore that I could dance for joy.

Ah…. sweet relief. It’s a beautiful thing.

Tooth pain stinks. Let me tell you.

I went through labor and I’m pretty sure that labor was easier than having a root canal go south.

Back when I was young and silly and did not yet appreciate the thousands of dollars my folks spent on orthodontia for me, I did not have a regular dentist. I had a fear of dentists and decided that if I just did not go, I would not have to deal with the fear… or with the pain. So I didn’t go. I didn’t go to the hygienist every six months for a cleaning, I didn’t go to the dentist even annually to get things checked out. Worse, I didn’t go when things started to cause pain. I stubbornly refused to go when that upper right molar (#2) started to really bug. I figured it would eventually stop. I figured wrong.

I let it go for far longer than a few months. Those few months turned into a couple of years and I’m honestly a little surprised that I didn’t end up with an abscess or something. No abscess, but I did end up shelling out just over a grand to have a root canal and a nice porcelain crown put on it. That was when I first began to appreciate the thousands of dollars my folks had sunk into my dental health, and when I first began to actually try to take care of things on a regular basis.

Since then, I’ve seen the hygienist faithfully every six months and the dentist has poked and prodded regularly. No more crowns required, thankfully, but I have had a few fillings. That one ugly crown, though, has caused me nothing but heartache since I invested in it so heavily. Every time I see the hygienist she clucks when she digs that sharp little measuring stick up into my gums so far I’m sure she’s hunting for grey matter.

“Nine, eight, nine,” she’ll say to the person doing the charting, in a disappointed, head-shaking, corners of her mouth turned down, kind of way.

Just ten days ago, at my last cleaning, we had another conversation about flossing (which I’m terrible at), and using my Water Pik regularly (which I’m great at).

“I would have thought the Water Pik would have caused significant improvement,” she said.

I nodded. You know how those conversations go when you have sharp instruments in your mouth. Nodding is about as interactive as I get.

Every cleaning, it’s the same. It never gets better. The gum tissue is inflamed, the tooth hurts occasionally. It’s just not good. And every visit the dentist tells me, “You’re not going to be able to hang onto that one forever. Don’t know how long, but not forever. See you in six months!” So I’ve been prepared that my tooth and I will not be lifelong friends. But they just checked it out again ten days ago. Ten! And the hygienist inserted some antibiotic stuff up under my gums around that tooth, in hopes of “stabilizing it”, whatever that means. Ten days ago…

On Saturday night, I started to feel like it hurt. It was that little twinge when I ate dinner, you know, like I had bitten down on an olive pit or something, and it just sent a shooting pain right up into my jaw. Only I wasn’t eating olives, I was eating mashed potatoes… the pitted kind.

By Sunday, I was popping Advil like candy, sure that I had something stuck in between my back teeth that was causing this pain. Perhaps I had a popcorn hull stuck in there from our family field trip on Easter morning to see Horton Hears a Who. No, it couldn’t be that. I distinctly remember chewing only on the left side because the pain was already bad when I put pressure on it. Maybe it was a potato skin. Or a piece of carrot. I went to work with the floss, flossing every 2.3 seconds, sure that the next round would dislodge whatever it was that was causing me such grief. It didn’t happen.

By yesterday morning, the entire right side of my face was swollen up like a chipmunk fresh from the nut farm, and my whole face was throbbing. I could tell what my resting heart rate was because every heartbeat caused some more searing pain to arc right up through the gum, through my sinus cavity, into my eye socket, around the back of my head, down behind my ear, and wrap right around into my lower jaw. It was bad.

I called the dentist first thing, hoping that they would have an immediate appointment. They didn’t. I had to wait until the afternoon, an eternity I tell you. When I finally got there, I laid in the chair, throbbing and miserable for almost a half hour, thinking of ways that I might be able to pry the tooth out myself. The dentist had an Easy button on her counter, I suppose to keep bored kids busy. I pressed it hopefully, but nothing happened. No computers fell out of the sky, no cell phones, no reams of paper, or anything else that Staples sells… and no improvement of the throbbing pain either. I contemplated getting someone to hit me as hard as possible on that side of my face. Maybe that would make it fall out. I looked for pliers, a claw hammer, a hockey stick, or any other dental or non-dental tool that might do the trick. Nothing.

Finally when the dentist made it in, I said, “Thank God. Can you just rip it out of my head please? I can’t take anymore!”

She smiled in response and said, “Well, we might just have to. But let me take a look first.”

She proceeded to poke and prod, say “Hmmmm” a lot, pull my lip so far out that I thought it might detach permanently from my mouth, and then tell me that it would be best to see an oral surgeon. “They’re really equipped for things like this,” she said.

“An oral surgeon?” I questioned. “How long will it take for me to get in? Because at this point, I’m considering finding a How-To video on YouTube or something.”

That made her laugh. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t aware of how serious I was.

“It won’t be long,” she said. “We already talked to them and they’re expecting your call. In the meantime, we’ll put you on some antibiotics to reduce the infection.”

The antibiotics are helping now, although I got about a millisecond of sleep last night despite copious amounts of Advil… far more than the recommended dosage! I have an appointment with the oral surgeon tomorrow morning to extract the tooth from my head. The dental assistant assured me that it would be no big deal. “It’s just a number two!” she chirped with a smile, as I walked out the door yesterday. Like everyone has had a number two extracted. “At least it’s not a bony growth that’s attached to your jaw bone or something!”

Love those people that can find joy and happiness in the most miserable of circumstances.

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed that the oral surgeon can just use his pliers and yank that sucker out… that there’s nothing underlying… that the antibiotics work as designed… that I never have to have another crown or root canal that might possibly go south. Because this? Stinks!

And you? Don’t forget to brush and floss.

And see your dentist regularly.

Because I would hate for you to have to have a number two extracted later in life because you were too scared to go…

Very interesting conclusions about her last e-mail, all of you.  I suppose it is possible that Letch has seen her true colors and laid down the law with her.  It’s possible that he’s actually a reasonable human being and had a conversation with her about the craziness of all of this.  And I know you all haven’t laid eyes on him, so it’s probably a logical conclusion. It’s just very different from my own, personal conclusion.

But then, I have some backstory you don’t have… yet.

The Egg Donor’s (ED) mother (we’ll call her Crazy Grandma) was a paralegal in a former life, and has helped ED write several of her responses (mainly the more coherent ones).  While Crazy Grandma is clearly a member of the ostrich family, and continually denies that ED has any issues that might be resolved by intense therapy, strong medication, or a long trip to Siberia, she’s not quite as “off the charts” insane as ED.  She can actually string a sentence together, she uses spell check, she must have passed Junior High Language Arts, and she can sound intelligent for more than one hour at a time.  In fact, her involvement typically does one of two things — it helps the situation tremendously because she gives ED a serious reality check or she buys into ED’s latest insanity and wreaks havoc with everything we’re trying to accomplish (because when ED actually sounds sane to a judge or an arbitrator when she’s so clearly NOT, it just takes longer to prove that she’s crazy).

Interestingly, on the night we received that last e-mail from ED, Crazy Grandma called our house to speak to the kids.  I thought the timing was a little odd, because she hasn’t called in several weeks, but I just figured they were talking about plans for Spring Break.  When My Hubby checked e-mail, very shortly thereafter, and we read that last e-mail from ED, I just knew it had come from Crazy Grandma, not from ED.   The sentences were coherent, the language professional.  It sounded like it had been drafted by someone with a clue, right down to the sentences making sure that there was no admittance that Letch had actually done anything wrong.

I have thought, several times, that maybe we should try to engage Crazy Grandma and see if she would try to get some help for ED.  But Crazy Grandma really does not believe there is anything wrong with ED.  She truly believes–even after multiple judges, arbitrators, therapists, teachers, doctors and other personnel have all come to the same conclusions about ED, and after her parenting time has been reduced, reduced, and reduced again–that My Hubby is just an expert at working the system, that everyone is just out to get ED.  So any conversations we might have would be fruitless and would probably just get used against us at some later time.

Still, this is one of those times when Crazy Grandma has injected some sanity into the situation for ED.  I’m sure she knows that ED is teetering on the brink of zero parenting time.  I’m sure she read the e-mails ED had already sent to the arbitrator and thought, “Dear God in heaven, she looks like a crazy loon!”  (Not, “Dear God in heaven, she IS a crazy loon!” mind you.)  I’m sure she told ED that she ought not challenge my ability to be there after I’ve been doing pickups and dropoffs for seven years now.  I’m sure she advised ED that it would NOT look good to the judge that Letch was behaving that way.  Maybe she pointed out that we have never raised this issue before and that we had some serious credibility with the arbitrator (who, by the way, has not ruled in her favor in any of our arbitrations save one, from well over two years ago).   Maybe she told her that My Hubby and I right now have the clear advantage and that she wasn’t picking her battles very wisely.

I don’t know what she told her.  I do know that it settled that issue fairly quickly and we don’t have to go to arbitration next week, spend another few hundred dollars to get it written in an order, ask for her portion a hundred times, file another Motion for Judgment, and then garnish her wages for it because she won’t ever pay.  It makes life so much easier when someone who is SANE can step in.

Having dealt firsthand with Letch in court and during the last few dropoffs and pickups, I don’t think he came to his senses.  I don’t think he wants to be left out of this turmoil.  Boyfriend before the felon was good at staying out of it.  He truly did not engage with me or with My Hubby at all, which was awesome.  He was a complete jerk to the kids and they were horribly afraid of him, but that’s a story for another day.  We didn’t have a chance to see what the felon would do.  You know the story behind that one.  But Letch?  He likes the drama, almost as much as ED.

I can see it behind his hooded eyes, in that maniacal clown smile, in the tailgating, in the comments he’s dropped (almost under his breath), in the glaring and the sneering.  He wants to engage us.  He wants to escalate.  He probably got some sick sense of satisfaction out of last Saturday’s events.  No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Letch that stood up for doing the right thing.  I think if he had his way, he’d get physical with us.  And isn’t that just so helpful in this already volatile situation?

No, I think it was Crazy Grandma that set this particular scenario straight.  I don’t like her much.  I don’t trust her at all.  But if she can get ED to straighten up and fly right, she’s alright in my book.  We can only hope that her conversation with ED included Letch and they both got a little dose of reality that will last for more than a day or two.

The rest of the story…

Pay particular attention to her last e-mail. I’m curious to know what you think about it.

Editor’s Note: My Hubby will be referred to as MH in all of the following.

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Arb-Man says:

Per The Egg Donor’s (ED) response message, is any further action needed?

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My Hubby says:

I would like for you to put it in an order, just so there is no confusion. It would read:

For Easter weekend 2008, Petitioner/Father will pick the children up from Respondent/Mother on Saturday March 22 at 7:00pm at the (regular dropoff location) and drop them back off to Respondent/Mother at the (regular dropoff location) at 9:00 am on Monday, March 24.

Also, we do need further action on Letch being involved in pickups and dropoffs.

Let me know what you think the cost would be and I will drop a check by.

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The Egg Donor (ED) says:

The Judge warned MH that he is not to try to control the things that happen at my house and especially in regard to who I am with. Letch is a stable part of the children’s life and my partner.The judge also warned MH is September that he is not to raise issues with my partner at any point and that next time he chose to there would be consequences. I was told that we could not dictate that Stephanie can attend pickups and lets not forget taht she caused the problem on Satruday and letch was the only one that handled it properly by telling her it was not apprpriate in front of the children. She should have dropped them off and emailed me or taken it up with the court and her course of action was inapprorpriate at best.
MH sends Stephanie to drop offs and pick ups alone every weekend and is has only attended two in the past year. I go with Letch and when MH has been there he has never seen any of the actions MH claims. If I have to go alone then so does MH and I would ask that he no longer sends Stephanie to mimize the trauma that she causes.
MH has had ample opportunity to raise this issue with the court and hasnt done so because he knows that the judge wouldnt tolerate it after he pulled background checks on friends of mine in September and was warned by the judge.
The issue is the fact that MH denies visitation on Saturday because Stephanie felt like it and he is trying to deflect that.Letch has every legal right by state to be there as Stephanie does. If he cant be there, neither can Stephanie. It is MH and Stephanie that have acted in the wrong here and deflecting that my putting it off on Letch who was simply trying to help me be considerate of MH and Stephanie’s time on Saturday by not being late is ridiculous.This never should have happened. I also would like it noted that MH needs to drop off backpacks for the children to attend school on Monday morning’s on my weekends during pick up. He doesnt send backpacks now claiming that is is “none of my business” causing the children extreme stress that they wont have needed materials for school. MH and Stephanie are not acting in the childrens best interest when i cant even get a backpack for school without a fight. This is way out of hand.

Editor’s Note: Did she just copy and paste this from her previous e-mail? Does she know she looks like an idiot when she repeats herself and continues to blather on and on and on?

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No response from us.

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ED says:

MH - You were warned in Septmeber of this year not to try and control or dictate anyone that I was with in regards to their ability to attend any drop off pick up or otherwise. You have had ample opportunity to address this with the Judge and have chosen not to do so because you know it never happened.

Letch will attend drop offs with me and you have never witnessed him doing anything because you are never there. He also attempted to cause no problem with this on Saturday.

If Letch isnt allowed to attend, I’d like to stipulate that Stephanie is not allowed to attend either. MH is yet again creating an issue where there is non and something he didnt even witness. I have been with Letch everytime for the last 8 month and MH has never shown opposition - we’ve been in court monthly since September of 2007. Letch has attended everything I’ve done and MH has not once brought this to anyone’s attention.

Arb-Man - I would like for you to talk to the children about what they wintessed and the level of abuse both verbal and physical that they have wintessed in the last few weeks as well.

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No response from us.

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ED says:

I’d also like dates for all of these alleged incidents so that I can properly dispute them if necessary because as I have stated..MH is fabricating this information.

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No response from us.

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ED says:

1. MH has not attended a drop off or pick up but twice in the last year
2. MH is raising an objection to somthing that he has not witnessed
3. MH was told not to bring these issues up again after September 2007 by the judge
4.MH has had ample opportunity to raise these issues in court which we have been to monthly since August 2007 or with me . He is using you instead of trying to communicate with me. That is in no way trying to co-parent and is not in the childrens nest interest.

I would ask that you defer this to the court. I do not feel that this is an issue appropriate for arbirtation and would object to it being arbitrated as a court has previously told us both not to pursue an action against one anothers spouse.

I would also ask that in the event that this is arbitrated, MH be ordered to pay for this action in its entirety and be barred from bringing such action again. I would also ask that Stephanie be barred from drop offs and pick ups as well. MH needs to move on with his life and let us all live in peace. He continues these actions which are not in the childrens best interest.This is about a man with an abusive history trying to control a situation that he has never raised issue with in court or with myself. He has no ability to control who I chose to spend my life with or that the children have a step-parent in my home.

Editor’s Note: Is she really questioning his ability to arbitrate this issue? Yep, she is. And I love the way she keeps moving the date back… September, August, 8 months ago, which is it? What a loon!

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My Hubby says:

Arb-Man - Please let me know that you received the check for the retainer. Also please let me know when we can schedule an arbitration for the pickup/dropoff issue, or if you can arbitrate that via e-mail.

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Arb-Man says:

MH, I received your check, thank you. The arbitration on pick up and drop offs will need to be done in person. ED, if you have a court document stating that this issue should not be arbitrated, please provide that document.

Let me know what your schedule looks like for next week. My best availabilities are in the mornings.

The Easter holiday has been agreed upon, and should be considered a court order.

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My Hubby says:

I am flexible next week and can be available anytime that fits your schedule.

Please let me know how you want to handle witness statements. Stephanie should give you her version of the events that have occurred during dropoffs and pickups as she was present and I was not. She can be present anytime, as well, or can give you her statement via telephone.

It would also be beneficial for you to speak with the children’s therapist, as she met with the children immediately following last weekend’s events and also has extensive knowledge on the situation at hand. I have already given her a release to speak with you and you can contact her directly at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Please let me know if you would like to have a position statement prior to next week’s meeting and what the due date and time would be for it. I think it would help keep the costs down for arbitration if both ED and I kept comments regarding this issue in the position statements, rather than sending multiple e-mails arguing the issue.

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ED says:

It should be noted that I absolutely object to the therapist being involved as there is pending complaints with the Civil Liberties Union, the AAMFT and the State in part for perjury.

I would also for the children to be heard and not through the therapist or in front of MH as they fear him greatly.

Editor’s Note: With the ACLU? Seriously? Perjury? Ha hahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!! Oh, sorry. My sides hurt now. Moving on…

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No response from us.

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ED says:

This is completely ridiculous. You know that Letch has never shown any signs of being difficult the few times that you have attended a drop off - he has never rolled down a wondow or even attempted to get out of the car..unlike you.

Letch came out of necessity on Saturday. I would propose that Letch and I are able to attend a drop off or pick up together and that if I cannot attend for any reason, I give or you give 24 hours notice so other arrangements can be made for us both to be there. Saturday we were trying to be considerate of your time with a last minute change of schedule and what happended was highly inappropriate for Stepanie - you know this. Stpehanie always tries to start something and we have never even gotten out of the car or rolled a window down to not engage her..we have not given into her bad behavior in front of the children nor tried to cause any of our own.
I have never been anything other than respectful during exchanges and neither has Letch.
What I am proposing is fair.

Editor’s Note: Anybody know what a wondow is?

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Then… ED says:

Although I strongly disagree with the assertion that Letch has done anything wrong, this is NOT his issue, and therefore we are voluntarily removing him from any involvement. He will not pick up the children alone again. I think this is completely inappropriate, but I would rather concede the point than put Letch in any further difficult situations.In the future should Letch say or do anything to either MH or Stephanie at any point during an exchange, I will attend any future exchanges from the date of the incident without him. I think this is more than reasonable.

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What happened there?

Veddy intelesting…

…by The Egg Donor (ED). 

After the issue this past weekend with Letch, we decided to seek arbitration.

**Note:  My Hubby is referred to in all of the following as MH.

Here is the e-mail we sent to Arb-Man:

Please see the issues I would like to address below.

A Easter/Spring Break Parenting Time

The order of 2005 establishes holiday parenting time.

That order states the following regarding Easter and Spring Break:

Spring Break – the children will be with Respondent/Mother in even-numbered years and with Petitioner/Father in odd-numbered years, from the close of school until school resumes, at which time the children are returned to school or daycare.

Easter - the children will be with Petitioner/Father in even-numbered years and with Respondent/Mother in odd-numbered years, from Saturday at 7:00 pm until Monday morning when the children are returned to school or daycare or, if there is no school or daycare, at 9:00 am.

This year, Easter falls during Spring Break, which creates a conflict in parenting time. I sent e-mail to ED on 3/11 and 3/13 attempting to come to agreement on this issue, but have received no response. It looks like we will need to arbitrate it.

I would ask that I exercise my regularly scheduled parenting time for Easter by picking the children up from ED on Saturday, March 22, at 7pm at the (regular dropoff location) and drop them back off at the same (regular dropoff location) at 9:00 am on Monday, March 24.

B. ED’s boyfriend at exchanges of the children

ED has a new boyfriend named Letch, who has been coming to drop-offs and acting inappropriately.

Most recently, he came to pick up the kids on Saturday morning, without ED, and was verbally assaultive to Stephanie in front of the children when she would not drop the kids off to him. At the prior dropoff, Letch was driving ED’s vehicle and, after Stephanie had dropped the kids off, Letch and ED, with the kids in the car, followed Stephanie for several miles, driving very aggressively and tailgating Stephanie. In another instance, Stephanie went to pick up the children from ED, who again had Letch driving her vehicle and during the exchange Letch waved at Stephanie and acted antagonistically, making faces and generally acting inappropriately, in front of the children, during the exchange. Letch has also caused issues with the children’s therapist by acting in an intimidating fashion. His actions, coupled with ED’s sabotage of therapy and poor treatment of the therapist, led to the therapist requesting that ED no longer bring the children to therapy during her Saturday parenting time.

Due to this kind of continued intimidating and aggressive behavior, and due to the fact that Letch is simply ED’s most recent boyfriend, not married to her or acting in any parental capacity, I would ask that Letch not be present during exchanges of the children.

Because Easter is this coming weekend, getting that issue addressed pretty immediately is important.

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And ED’s immediate response:

I’m happy to work with him for this weekend and the court order is just fine as he has already been told.He is trying to cause a problem again that is madated by court order. I had no intentions of functioning in anyway outside of this order.

Letch has never acted in an intimidating way to Stephanie or the therapist - He has never spoken to the therapist and it was Stepahnie that caused an issue with Letch on Saturday that was witnessed.Someone in the parking lot was so disturbed by what they saw, they came to Letch after Stephanie Sped off with the children in the car. You need to speak with the kids and they will tell you exactly what occured and MH’s version is nowhere near accurate. He hasnt dropped the children off in 7 years but twice. I bring Letch now for protection. He has never spoken with MH or Stephanie nor attempted to and Saturday was out of necessaity for pick up - they were on their way to get me.Letch is no different than my spouse and the state recognizes him the same way. MH my not dicatate that and the judge has already stated this.The only time letch waved - he was waving at Velma who when she saw Letch, waved to Him and he was curteosly waiving back. He wasnt not waiving at Stephanie. He is an adult and has not history of this behavior.

What is occuring is MH trying to make more of something that has happened in which he denied my parenting time this weekend arbitrarily. He has intimidated the children, thrown glasses and tables at them in the last several weeks and has gotten into huge screaming matches with his wife in front of the chidlren and the therapist. The children are far from safe and MH is trying to deflect this.

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No response from us.

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ED’s next response:

I just reread this - we have never tailgated or followed Stephanie and these allegations are outrageous.We have however been followed by Stephanie on multiple occasions. I too requested that we do not deal with the therapist because she verbally attacked me in her office resulting in an appointment that lasted 7 minutes with me leaving in tears. Please note that in the letter to the court, the therapist said nothing about Letch. MH has never witnessed behavior is he stating and in fact has caused extreme trauma to the children. Formal complaints have been filed against the therapist with the AAMFT, the State and the Civil Rights comissions in D.C. We are expecting a formal investigation of the therapists negligence but that has no bearing on this issue.

What this is about is MH’s desire to control a situation that his wife created on Saturday. Letch repeatedly told Stephanie that he would not dicuss anything in fromt of the children and it was her taht was threatening and calling him names. The children saw this and commented on it. Stephanie did not have the right to deny visitation and she did so arbitrarily in a manner that almost involved the police because the children were so upset as was letch. I will not tolerate Letch being involved in this - he did nothing and would have said nothing had Stephanie not instigated the situation. She should have dropped the children off and dealt with this with you or the courts if there was an issue and not in front of the children. MH is failing to see that and has traumatized the children in the process.

The Judge warned MH that he is not to try to control the things that happen at my house and especially in regard to who I am with. Letch is a stable part of the children’s life and my partner.The judge also warned MH is September that he is not to raise issues with my partner at any point and that next time he chose to there would be consequences. I was told that we could not dictate that Stephanie can attend pickups and lets not forget taht she caused the problem on Satruday and letch was the only one that handled it properly by telling her it was not apprpriate in front of the children. She should have dropped them off and emailed me or taken it up with the court and her course of action was inapprorpriate at best.

MH sends Stephanie to drop offs and pick ups alone every weekend and is has only attended two in the past year. I go with Letch and when MH has been there he has never seen any of the actions MH claims. If I have to go alone then so does MH and I would ask that he no longer sends Stephanie to mimize the trauma that she causes.

MH has had ample opportunity to raise this issue with the court and hasnt done so because he knows that the judge wouldnt tolerate it after he pulled background checks on friends of mine in September and was warned by the judge.

The issue is the fact that MH denies visitation on Saturday because Stephanie felt like it and he is trying to deflect that.Letch has every legal right by the state to be there as Stephanie does. If he cant tbe there, neither can Stephanie. It is MH and Stephanie that have acted in the wrong here and deflecting that my putting it off on Letch who was simply trying to help me be considerate of MH and Stephanie’s time on Saturday by not being late is ridiculous.This never should have happened. I also would like it noted that MH needs to drop off backpacks for the children to attend school on Monday morning’s on my weekends during pick up. He doesnt send backpacks now claiming that is is “none of my business” causing the children extreme stress that they wont have needed materials for school. MH and Stephanie are not acting in the childrens best interest when i cant even get a backpack for school without a fight. This is way out of hand.

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Again no response from us.

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There are more responses, but I’ll save those for another post.  She’s a master of deflection and escalation, not to mention exaggeration and just flat out lying.  I have to say, though, that it’s interesting to see those e-mails come through, a little more intense every time, after we have not responded at all. 

Already we have some great fodder for our next court appearance. 

Isn’t it a little strange that My Hubby is supposedly throwing glasses and tables at the children and she hasn’t filed an Emergency Motion of any kind?  Or called Social Services?

Isn’t it strange that she’s filing all kinds of complaints against the therapist?

Isn’t it strange that she brings Letch along for protection… when My Hubby never goes and it’s just me?  Is she protecting herself from little ol’ me?

Isn’t it strange that the more and more we don’t respond, the bigger and more exaggerated the story becomes? 

She’s like Pavlov’s dog.  It would be funny, if she weren’t so outrageously hurtful in her accusations.