"If I lay here,
If I just lay here,
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world?
I don't quite know
How to say how I feel.
Those three words
Are said too much.
They're not enough."
-- Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol
Lots of revisiting lately, with court-related stuff.
Things are in the hands of sheets of paper our psychologist/evaluator, after three visits including one with Zoe, submits to the judge. "You'd be surprised how many people settle before trial," he said.
Hmph.
The weather seemed to keep more sensible parents from indulging their children. Jacob jumped right in on his first real trip to Chuck E. Cheese.
Not surprisingly, I left with a headache. But here's hoping they both sleep late tomorrow!
"Where, oh where, can my baby be?"
-- Last Kiss, Wayne Cochran
I de-iced my driveway tonight in anticipation of the apocalypse the weather guy predicted. I watched from my window as the white stuff recoiled. Satisfaction.
An hour later, I looked out. It's all covered over with a fresh layer of snow.
I'm still a newbie at this. Am I supposed to actually bust out a shovel? Get up early and spread some more ice melter? Take the day off and admit defeat?
I live on a dead end street, so this is really just an exercise in learning the ropes about snow days. But it looks like we'll have one tomorrow. Several people told me today that trucks aren't normally sent out until it stops snowing, and I see that wisdom now as I watch my driveway frost over.
What galls me to no end is that I spent the week at work busting my ass to get to a point where I could work on Really Important Things, and predicted snow is what will get in my way.
A hurricane, I could see staying home from work. A building sans windows, streets strewn with trees and traffic wires, no running water or electricity for weeks, a car underwater, roofs blown to pieces across several blocks, THAT I have accepted in keeping me from work. But fucking snow????
This was fun when I was a kid. But not when I have so much -- professionally, personally, legally -- riding on me navigating the city in a single day. The whole city will stop tomorrow, but I have just too much to get through.
DEEP BREATH.
I think I'm just afraid... of not being on schedule for Jacob tomorrow. I fear him getting snowed into a cozy corner with Joe. Or getting him and not being skilled enough to drive through ice and snow to get to our appointments.
And I miss him terribly. I miss cupping his round head when he buries his face into me, I miss him and Zoe chasing each other around the house, I miss the smell of him as he climbs into my lap with a fistful of toys he forgets about for a moment.
"The sun is getting high
We're moving on..."
-- 100 Years, Five for Fighting
I was so fucking busy at work the past two days, I don't think I'm seeing straight. When Liam mentioned dinner tonight with the kids, I swear, my eyes started to spin in different directions.
"Go out or stay in?" My god, I need a nap so bad.
"What are you in the mood for?" A NAP.
"What sides do you want?" A SIDE OF NAPPING, TOPPED OFF WITH NO MORE MEETINGS.
I didn't actually say these things to him, but he must have sensed what was on my mind. I got home from work and collapsed on my bed, and when I dragged myself up, the kids were fed, and Liam was on the couch under a heap of children and watching cartoons. Ahhhhhhhh.
And he waited to eat dinner with me until I got my act together.
The kids had fun. Here, a pic from them taking Photo Booth pictures on my laptop:
Jacob (pretending anything that resembles a rectancle is a phone): Hi! Blahrta kilgfidigen. (pause) Iffen a blah di gam? (pause) Uh-oh. Treedenbler sofiden. (pause, laughter) Onidi iss bloo. Bye-bye.
Communication has been sporadic with Joe lately, but in my mailbox at work, I found a letter he apparently copied me on and sent to the day care:
Enclosed is my check for $410.52 representing my share of day care costs for my son Jacob for January 2008.
My calculation of my share of the January bill was based on your preliminary bill of $660 (20 days at $33 a day). Please let me know whether the preliminary bill was changed so we can apply a credit to a future bill.
Generally, I’m responsible for 58 percent of day care costs for Jacob. My payment is more than 58 percent because I am responsible for the full cost of Jacob’s day care for Jan. 23 and Jan. 25 ($33 for each day).
Here’s how I arrived at my share: $344.52 (equal to 58 percent of $594, which is the cost for 18 days of day care) plus $66 for Jan. 23 and Jan. 25. The total is $410.52.
To get a timely payment to you for February, I’ll need an estimated bill on Monday, Feb. 18. To date, I’ve kept Jacob out of day care one day this month: on Tuesday, Feb. 12. I can’t speak for Jacob’s mother.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Joe, I understand you have your concerns about the way we are paying the day care. I would prefer it though if we stuck with the language in the order (simply, you pay 58% and I pay 42%) and not get the day care involved in mediating our legal situation. The order does not address these new rules you intend to apply regarding days off, so if you want to amend it, please
attempt to do so through the courts. In the meantime, please let's follow the present order.
If you could kindly return Jacob's shoes to the day care center Monday, I would appreciate it.
It's these kind of messages that prove anew the wisdom of communicating through lawyers. Please do that because this is the last time I will respond to you directly. If I may paraphrase a message you sent me a while back: I pay my lawyer to deal with you.
1. The only shoes I have for Jacob are pairs I bought for him or my family or friends gave him as gifts. I don't have the brown pair you had been putting on him, if that's what you're talking about. Those were in your diaper bag the last time I saw them. I know this because I checked when Jacob was in socks one day about a week or so ago, and I asked the day care people where his shoes were. I haven't been putting shoes on him because his walking and proto-running are progressing better without them, and many experts say to allow children to go shoeless as much as possible.
2. I'm following my lawyers' advice on paying my legitimate day care costs. This costs you nothing because you apparently aren't willing to acknowledge that there are times when day care costs are solely your responsibility. I wouldn't be responsible for 58 percent of a sitter's cost if you put Jacob with someone on one of your nights or weekend days. To us, it's no different, most of the time, when one of us takes a workday off and puts Jacob in day care. There are exceptions, of course, but not many. This isn't a legal ploy or strategy; this is fair.
My lawyers and I have been consistent about the day care issue. We certainly are not going to say one thing -- the same thing we've been saying since the meeting when the support order was agreed to -- and do another. Still, my lawyers and I will show up if you and your lawyer want to go to court to complain that I'm paying more than my share, i.e., too much, for day care. Or, if you want to save on legal fees, you could try talking again to the HR department. Maybe someone there can direct me to reduce my day care payments.
Talk about getting an outsider "involved in mediating our legal situation."
In a somewhat unrelated matter, Jacob and I are scheduled to meet with the psychologist at 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. As you may know, these sessions generally take about an hour (according to the psychologist). I'll return Jacob to the day care center afterward, in time for you to begin your weekend with him. Have your lawyer tell my lawyer if this is a problem for you.
I see you are still unwilling to develop a coparenting relationship.
I hope you don't continue to harass me about speaking with HR about your abusing your power as a manager for your personal gain at my expense. I wouldn't want to make another trip over there.
I will continue to pay my 42% of the total day care costs. If things get too unruly, I will deal with it another way.
Candy-making was a relative success today.
The kids enjoyed it, and even though I would have liked to sit down to do a batch of my own, I had a lot of fun helping them out.
Even Jacob got in on the action.
After dinner -- which no one ate, since they were filled up on the sweet stuff -- we decorated Valentine boxes for school. Aimee brought over tons of stickers and glitter.
Next up, Easter.
I'm planning to get a lot of rest in the meantime.
Overheard on Noggin:
Moose A. Moose: "B needs to find her flower! Let's all help B find her flower!"
We're making Valentine's Day candy tomorrow!
I have a bunch of friends and kids coming over to make a mess. I had a hard time gathering up the supplies I needed today, but managed to make it work. My dad dug up the candy molds from his basement, so we're good to go.
These molds -- dozens of them -- have been in his basement unused for ages, so I was scrubbing them all down tonight. It was great remembering the times as a kid when my mom would make candy with us, chocolate-covered cherries being by far my favorite to make. And eat.
I don't think we're going to be that elaborate tomorrow. Not even close.
Some of the molds brought back memories of finding Easter baskets when I was a kid. Others brought back memories of my mother's more risque -- or should I say progressive -- sense of humor. 
I remember attending family gatherings during the holidays, the adults opening up gifts from my mom, and while laughing heartily, shielding the boxes from the younger kids. She would paint these Playboy bunny molds pretty realistically, and the um, boobs, were designed to be chocolate-covered cherries.
Zoe spotted these molds, and out of all the bunnies and kittens and seashells, she latched on (not literally) to these. "Tomorrow, I want to do the ones with the pretty ladies. They are so pretty with their bunny ears."
YEAH, and the TRIPLE Ds.
These molds will mysteriously disappear before the other kids show up tomorrow. But I think I know what I'm getting my friends for Christmas this year.
"I made it through the rain.
I kept my world protected.
I made it through the rain.
I kept my point of view."
-- I Made It Through the Rain, Barry Manilow
I parked at the bottom of the hill this morning at Zoe's bus stop. It's been hitting the 60s the past couple of days, but raining like all hell. We caught a break while waiting for the bus and I was thankful, because I had forgotten our umbrellas in the garage, open and drying out.
There's a creek (aka CRICK) that runs along the road, and I remarked out loud about how high the level of it was. I think my exact words were something like, "Wow, the river is high."
Zoe, always alert, asks, "What does that mean?"
"Just that the river is high. It's been raining a lot lately."
"What does it mean if the river is high?"
Nothing really, I thought. We live up on a hill, so it's not like I'm worried about flooding. Not on my property, anyway. But this means weather stories galore at work, a constant makeshift pond in the back yard, a yucky drive into the office, muddy dog paw marks all over my kitchen...
"It just means it's been raining a little too much these days," I decided to tell her.
"Oh," she says. "So the toilets will stop working."
Zoe doesn't remember a whole lot about living in Florida, but she reminded me of one of the quirks I had forgotten about living there: Heavy rains = plumbing failure.
How she remembered this, I have no idea. But I had to laugh.
"Our toilets will work, Zoe. They didn't work in Florida because we were on the same level as the ocean. Here we're up in the mountains."
"I don't see any mountains."
Oh for crying out loud. How to explain to a 6-year-old about sea level and its effects??
And then her bus came. That was almost as stressful as answering her question the other day about how babies get to be people.
"BUT HOW DID THEY START AS BABIES?" she demanded after I answered relatively honestly about babies in mommies bellies.
OK, maybe the baby question was more stressful.
"I'm used to it by now.
Another day; just believe.
Just breathe. Just believe.
Just breathe.
Lying in my bed,
Another day, staring at the ceiling."
-- Breathe, Telepopmusik
I hate it when I don't have Jacob over the weekend. I can't just lie down on my living room floor and know that within minutes he'll come bulldozing over me or start throwing toys at me or poking at my belly button or sticking things up my nose... it just kills me. The lack of control over being with my baby... I can barely stand it.
At least during the week, I can stop at the day care and see him at will, or call and get an update. But on Joe's weekends... I have to force myself to get out of bed and keep busy or I will go nuts.
But the beautiful thing about Mondays after those weekends... is the feeling of peace that overwhelms me when I get to scoop him up in my arms and fall into a heap laughing with him and Zoe. Everything is complete, everything is the way it's supposed to be, after holding my breath for three whole days.
If it wasn't for Zoe, a dedicated therapist and a bottomless laundry hamper, I would be insane by now.
I think we were halfway through the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl (can I say SUPER BOWL in a blog? Or do I have to say THE BIG GAME?) when Liam pointed out that I could win a bunch of bucks in my dad's pool if New England got the ball back and ran a touchdown but didn't have time to kick the extra point.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.
I can't stand the Patriots. I used to like them, but I think any team (coach) that has a perfect record and CHEATS is not worthy of anything but a t-shirt that says in big block letters: "I WENT TO THE SUPER BOWL AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS T-SHIRT."
Bill Belichick has so little class he thought (maybe?) he was doing a noble thing by walking on the field with seconds left in the game, but he left his team high and dry while they had to go into formation while the Giants knelt for the last play. The damn coach left his team. I hope Belichick eats some tainted lobster tonight and has the runs for a week. Fucker.
If there were any other team in the Super Bowl, I probably couldn't have cared less. But when I see that guy's mug, I want to ram a heavy 35mm camera body into his head. light. Yeah, into his headlight.
We made pizzas tonight and the kids had a good time. We were all up later than usual, but it was worth seeing Plaxico weep on national television.
We went to another Pens game last night. 
This time the Pens won, 4-1. Freakin' Carolina!!! Liam talks a lot about the players, and even asks me stuff like, "Do you remember that play back in '95 when so-and-so checked so-and-so and there was a penalty?"
Um....
NO.
It's fun to watch games with him though... Even more fun going to games with him. But I wonder when he will catch on that I'm just there for the cotton candy.
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