Thursday, December 09, 2004

Complaints & Gripes

Last night I had my first doctor's appointment in the series of appointments where my docs are going to decide if I need to have a hysterectomy or not. It was horrid! I never want to do that again. I’ll spare you the details—but at least I can say everything’s fine on that particular issue. Next appt is Dec 21st—I hope we schedule surgery that day so I can be done with all this bullshit. I was so nervous, I actually took a valium.

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Eric and I have no formal agreement regarding Emily. We have agreed to split the two major holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas), and for the most part, we just play all the others by ear. He is supposed to pay me $75 a week to help with daycare costs, but he hasn't paid me since July. He has, however, done a lot of work around the house (helping paint the outside, pulling out the fence, stuff like that) to work off some of what he owes, but he's nowhere near even--he owes me somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,600.00.

Eric is taking Emily for Christmas. He's picking her up on the morning of the 24th & not coming home until bedtime on Christmas day.

Part of me understands this is the nature of sharing a child with someone to whom I'm not married, but another part of me wants to tell him to fuck off. Until he puts more effort into the responsibilities of parenting (including, among other things, paying child support on a regular basis), he doesn't get any of the privileges. I don't know why I let him have his "rights", since he's so far behind on his "responsibilities", except that I fear his retaliation. He's way too smart for his own good, and I have nightmares that if we went to court I'd end up with fewer rights than I retain by our "handshake" agreement. You know what I mean?
The third piece of the puzzle of course is that even if he's an ass, it's not fair to punish the rest of his family by denying them access to Emily. I'm so incredibly bummed.

His folks are the kindest people ever, but they do these thoughtless (seemingly manipulative) things so often I want to scream! Next weekend, we're having Emily's birthday party (the 18th--on her actual birthday)--they're all invited, and they're all coming, except his brother and brother's wife, but for some fucking reason which is completely outside my realm of understanding, they're throwing her a birthday party at their house THIS Saturday evening!

I feel like they're trying to outdo or undermine me and it makes me incredibly resentful and angry. But I don't know how to tell them that without sounding like an ungrateful uber-bitch. This is the first real party I've ever had for her, and I've really gone all out: special plates, table cloth, gift bags for all the kids, a Snow White cake (I made the doll dress to match her Halloween costume), and I even ordered M&Ms with birthday party pictures and her name on them...so why are they doing this to me?

Also, they've purchased tickets for the WHOLE family to go to a Christmas Carol on Saturday afternoon. I know that cost them a pretty penny (themselves, Eric’s grandmother, me, Em, Eric, his brother, wife & their kids), so I can't really back out, but Emily's scared of ghosts and who do you suppose is going to get the brunt of the nightmares for the next few months? Grrrr....

Oh, and then to top it off, not only do I have to miss the ONE Christmas party I want to go to (on Saturday), but my boss managed to rope me into feeding his fucking dog this weekend while he's out of town, so now I have to turn around Saturday after Em's early b-day party and drive all the way home--which means I WON'T get to have Sunday dinner with Leese, Stanks & their kids as planned! And Stanks even traded shifts with someone so we could meet! God, I feel horrible about it.

I don't really need solutions--it is what it is--I just wanted to gripe a little bit. I'm sad about not sharing Christmas day with my baby.

He's such a bastard sometimes.