Day +73: Friday Before The Long Weekend

Friday before a long weekend, and I don't want the weekend to start.

As part of the Consent Orders, we must take M for the entire long weekend if it was a sleepover weekend. That meant that instead of only having M from Friday night till Sunday night, she would stay with us from Friday night till Monday night. We were forced to agree to this condition late last year, because the Evil Witch was adamant she would not sign the Consent Orders if we didn't agree to this. I was never happy about this condition, but at the time, we were running out of money to pay the legal fees, and we were completely out of patience with the Evil Witch. So we agreed, and this weekend was the first long weekend since the Consent Orders were signed.

As was usual on a Friday, Jonathan was working from the Ermington office, so I made sure he got me and Sean out of bed early enough to get some breakfast into Sean before we drove Jonathan to work. We had not had a chance to buy the groceries and food we needed for the weekend, and the plan was for us to drop Jonathan at work, and then head to the supermarket to do the grocery shopping.

One very full shopping trolley later, we headed home. It was not easy getting doing the shopping by myself - it was a chore to get all the bags in the car, and it was a nightmare getting the bags from the car into the house, and even worse while trying to put everything away, all with a very active toddler who wanted to help. In future, I will consider buying the groceries online over doing the shopping by myself again.

After the last couple of weeks, I could really do without having to look after an extra person on the Public Holiday Monday. It was a day off work for Jonathan, and I selfishly wanted that to translate to him helping me with looking after Sean during the day so I could have a break. Any time we have M over, especially on sleepover weekends, my stomach was always in knots for a day or two leading up to pick up. And this weekend was no exception.

Whenever M came to us for a sleepover weekend, I would always wind up looking after everyone, and not getting any time off. This was Jonathan's time with M, and a lot of the times, Sean's routine was forgotten or left unchecked. If I wanted to keep Sean on the routine he was on during the week, such as feeding Sean his meals and giving him his boluses of milk, I would have to either do the tasks myself, or nag Jonathan to do it. And I really hated nagging him, just because he was too distracted with spending time with M to remember what Sean needed at what time.

Whenever M came to us for a sleepover weekend, I would have to make sure we had the "right" foods to feed her. M was still quite fussy with her food, and I would always make sure that we had food that she would eat - the tried and true meals that she would not reject. The memories of the days when she demanded specific meals for dinner, only to turn her nose up and declare the meal as "YUCK" when it was put in front of her were still painfully fresh, as were the hurtful memories of her defiantly refusing dinner and demanding that I made her "butter foldovers to eat in bed, just like Mummy did". Trying to work out a menu plan for a normal sleepover weekend was hard enough - this included 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and a dinner, plus 4 between meal snacks. Add another day on top of that (1 more breakfast, 1 more lunch and 2 more snacks), and I may as well become a short order cook.

Whenever M came to us for a sleepover weekend, for some reason, she would wear all her clothes from her entire wardrobe. This was a girl who could go through 4 costume changes before lunch time. Any clothing she wore was guaranteed to acquire a food stain of some description, no matter how long she wore that item of clothing. She could put something on for 5 minutes, and I would find a fresh food stain on it as soon as she took it off. I had no problem with her doing that at home, as I wasn't the one doing her laundry, but here, in my house, I am the ONLY person who did laundry, and I had a huge problem with her wearing all her clothes in the one weekend. Especially when I would wear the same outfit 3 or 4 times between each wash.

Whenever M came to us for a sleepover weekend, we had to try and plan some fun things to do over the weekend. This would include some arts and crafts (either by herself or with Daddy's help), baking (with me), physical activities and games (usually with Daddy, now sometimes included Sean) and gaming time (with Daddy). M loved baking, because it was a fun thing to do and she got to eat the baked goods afterwards, but she had no idea how messy things could get, nor how much washing up I had to do afterwards. As it was, I was the one who ALWAYS washed the dishes, and most of the time, I was the one who put away the dried dishes as well. I was washing enough dishes already without adding another huge pile of gear to wash and put away.

Whenever M came to us, for a Sunday visit or for a sleepover weekend, I felt I had to be on my best behaviour, and make sure M was also on her best behaviour. We had rules in our house, and I was always very strict with M, often lecturing her if I felt she stepped out of line and did something wrong. I never want M to go home and say to the Evil Witch "well, Daddy and Gloria let me do this" (whatever "this" may be), and for us to cop a nasty spray from the Evil Witch about turning M against her. There had been times when I wondered if M was resentful of me being so strict with her. I mean, I am the stepmother, so I had every right to be the "fun parent" who didn't give a stuff and allowed her to do whatever she damn well wanted. But that job was already taken, by the Evil Witch, who felt it more important that M liked her than to be a proper parent and disciplinarian, so M was allowed to get away with so much more at home than she was at our house.

Whenever M came to us, for a Sunday or for a sleepover weekend, I felt I had to show her I was doing stuff around the house, all because of a comment she made to me last year when Sean was only a couple of months old. I was sleep deprived to the max, and Sean had had a bad night where he needed constant feeding. M had come into my bed, and we were talking about something or other. Jonathan was looking after Sean in the lounge room, and I said something about being tired, but I needed to get out of bed soon. All wide-eyed and innocent, she said "You don't do anything around the house - Daddy does everything and you do nothing". I thought I heard wrong, and I thought she was joking, so I asked her to repeat what she said, so she did, with a "Mummy said so" added at the end. With that, she flounced out of my bed, out of my room, and into the lounge room to find Jonathan. My eyes still smart with tears every time I remember those words.

Most of all, whenever M came to us, for a Sunday or for a sleepover weekend, I am reminded that, ultimately, M is not my child. As much as I love M, and I know she loves me to bits, she is still someone else's child, and I have no say in her upbringing, her welfare, or even her appearance. I can always suggest things, and my suggestions will always be taken into consideration by Jonathan, but in the end, I still have no say. If there was something I very strongly disagreed with Jonathan on the rearing of his child, I would have to park my opinion, because I have no say.

I was becoming increasingly resentful that Jonathan never paid enough attention to what M was wearing when he picked her up from her house. The weather had been getting colder and colder, and M would often arrive at our house wearing nothing more than a T-shirt and pants. No cardigan, jumper or jacket in sight. M would often wear stupid shoes that pinched her feet, or she would "forget" to wear socks with her shoes which made her feet sore as the shoe rubbed against her sockless feet. Because I apparently did "nothing" and Daddy did "everything", I had rules about M and her clothes when she came to visit. If it was a Sunday, then she stayed in in the clothes she arrived in all day long. If she was cold because she forgot to bring a jacket, or she wasn't dressed warmly enough, then bad luck. If it was a sleepover weekend, M would spend the weekend in the clothes we bought for her and were kept at our house, but on the Sunday, as soon as breakfast was finished, she would have to change back into the outfit she came to us in on the Friday night. Again, if those clothes were uncomfortable or not warm enough, then bad luck. On sleepover weekends, I always did a load of laundry after breakfast on the Sunday that consisted mainly of M's clothes, and since I did "nothing", I wasn't about to be doing her laundry on a Monday.

Week after week, I would ask Jonathan to pay more attention to what M was wearing when she came out of her house. Week after week, I would ask Jonathan to send M back to the house to pick up a jacket or a cardigan when she ran to him wearing less than sufficient clothing. Week after week, I would be dismayed by the sight of what M was wearing when she walked through the door. Week after week, M would tell me she was warm enough upon entry into our house, and week after week, she would tell me she was cold late in the afternoon, a few hours before Jonathan took her home. One of these weeks, some time in the next decade, Jonathan may just get it right.

I was resentful of M's long hair, and have been for a very long time. I had never wanted to look after a child's long hair - if Sean had been a girl, she would have short hair until she was old enough to look after it herself. I grew up with that rule, and I firmly believed in that rule. I will never forgive the Evil Witch for telling us 2 days before my wedding that M's hair was infested with nits. She had known for 4 days, and had been "treating" the nits with a "preventative spray", and had continued to send M to school where she and her friends were passing the nits back and forth. Instead, the Evil Witch should have been dousing M's hair with nit-killing chemicals and repeatedly combing all the nits and eggs out of M's scalp, keeping her from school to make sure all the nits were dead, and cutting her hair shorter in an effort to reduce the chances of M bringing home more nits. But no, the Evil Witch wanted M to have long hair, which was now cascading half way down her back, and too long for M to look after properly. I wanted M to get a haircut, to a more manageable shoulder length, but this was met with a resounding "no". And since we were told (read: "demanded") to leave M's hair alone, I have stopped helping M to brush her hair, and I have forbidden M's hair from being washed at our house.

Lately, I was also resentful of us being forced to drive M to and from her German lessons on sleepover weekends. German lessons were every Saturday from 10am to 1pm, held in a church hall in Chester Hill. While it was local to M from her house, it was nowhere near local for us. The trip was approximately 20km from our house to the church hall, and every second Saturday, Jonathan would drive M to German lessons, drive back to our house, then drive back to the hall to collect M at 1pm and return home. 4 trips of 20km a piece meant an extra 80km of wear and tear on our car, not to mention the cost of petrol, for lessons that we were never consulted on but were now a commitment we were forced into having. And let's not mention 4.5 hours she spent away from us just so she could attend, for all intents and purposes, a play session of arts and crafts where she may or may not pick up a word in German.

I was becoming very fed up with being held hostage on sleepover Saturdays, where we couldn't go and do anything meaningful because we had to play chauffeur to M and those damn German lessons where she learned nothing; lessons that were such a waste of time and money as no one in her house spoke to her in German in an effort to try and get her to retain some of the knowledge from the play session / class.

I was feeling so frustrated and irritated, and the last thing I wanted was to make these feelings known to M and be openly resentful towards her. It wasn't her fault that her mother was the Evil Witch, and her maternal grandparents were rude and obnoxious idiots.

So, as you may have guessed, I do not look forward to having M for sleepovers, and especially not this weekend, when we are forced to take her for an extra day and night, all because the Evil Witch "needed a break". Rich for her to want or even need a break - she did nothing all day long as she didn't work nor hold down a job, and she needed a break? I so wish I had a bullet with her name on it, so I could give it to her and tell her to take a permanent break.

As predicted, M arrived at our house wearing ONE layer of clothing - a thin long sleeve shirt. No jacket, no jumper, no cardigan. And stupid shoes. Her smart mouth immediately told me she was warm enough and didn't need extra clothes. I can't wait till she gets sick next week and has to miss out on more school.

I can't wait for this weekend to be over.