Flashback Fridays #14

It’s been brought up recently so I figured I’d talk about it.  I was a pretty good kid, I didn’t drink, I didn’t do drugs (still never have) and I wasn’t out partying.  If I wasn’t at home, I was at my friend Marshalls, at Lifeline shooting hoops, or at church.  My mom didn’t have to worry about me, at least in that sense.  I did do something that she tried to stop and couldn’t, something that could have gotten me kicked out of school (it almost did).  I skipped school, a lot.

I hated school, I hated how I was treated (either negatively or ignored), I HATED school.  But even more than my hatred for school, was my hatred for getting up in the morning.  I liked to stay up late, and therefore was not ready to get up when the alarm went off.  So when I hit Junior High, I started staying home, usually on Mondays.  After staying up late on Friday and Saturday night (usually just sitting in my room, playing with my baseball cards), I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep at a decent hour on Sunday night so I wouldn’t fall asleep till 4ish.  Instead of forcing myself up out of bed (like I did on Tuesday mornings) I just wouldn’t go.

I was the first person to leave in the morning but my bedroom was the only one in the basement.  So I would get up, get ready and then, just before the bus would come by, I would yell to my mom that I was leaving, open and shut the front door and sneak back down to my room.  Now, because my brother would come into my room at times when he was up and getting ready for school, I couldn’t just crawl into bed.  So I would hide.  Do you remember waterbeds?  Do you remember when they would have a shelf for a headboard?  Do you remember the little crawl space under that shelf?

Not my bed, but you get the idea.  See the crawlspace under the shelf?  I would grab a pillow and back myself into that crawlspace and fall asleep.  Guess it was a good thing I didn’t snore.  Eventually, I would wake up after my brother and mom would leave.  I would go upstairs, crawl into my mom’s bed and fall back asleep.  Why my mom’s bed?  Because it had a phone next to it (this was before cellphones young’ens) and when the school would get around to doing attendance, they would attempt to call my mom at home.  I would wake up to the phone, answer it, tell them in my surprised voice “Oh, she must have forgotten to call in, I’ll call her at work and have her give you a call.”  Then I would go back to sleep.  When I actually did go to school, I would be the first one home so in a few days, I’d get off the bus, grab the mail, and throw away the letter from the school to my mom to tell her that I wasn’t at school.

I got caught here and there, my mom would find out but by my final year of Junior High, I had it mastered.  I bet I went to school on a Monday only two or tree times all year.  That didn’t include the days later in the week that I didn’t go.  I missed a crap load of school and they did nothing about it.  The bad part was, I got bored sitting at home by myself all the time.  So I started to talk my brother into it and we would both skip.  We had a few skipping stories, like the time my aunt stopped by and we snuck up on the roof until the bus went by and pretended to just get home.  But the most famous story we have when we skipped school was when we got a visitor to the door.  We were sitting on the living room floor, playing Monopoly when the door bell rang.  I snuck over to the door and looked out the peephole to see my Vice Principal standing there.  There was no choice but to open it since he knew we were home.  Apparently, the school got wise and called my mom at work and offered to go pick us up.  So the VP and my guidance counselor took my brother to school (Elementary) then took me to Junior High.

The next year, I started High School and they kept track a lot better than Junior High did.  Eventually it got to the point where they pulled my mom and me in the office and they told us if I missed another day that I would get expelled.  So I didn’t miss another day, I would show up for the first 3 hours and then walk out and drive home.  I was (and still am) stubborn so I kept doing it.  While I didn’t really get into much more trouble for it anymore, I had to cut way back on how often I skipped.

One of the things I hate about the new rules of schools is that the parents can get into trouble if their kids aren’t in school.  My mom did everything she could to get me to go everyday, but she was a single mother who had to work.  She didn’t know I was under my bed, she would check my room to make sure I wasn’t there.  There is no way she should have gone to jail because I was skipping school.  I understand the law because there are parents who don’t care and let their kids skip school but that doesn’t mean all of them are bad parents.

Flashback Friday’s–Be afraid, be very afraid (repost)

I went looking for an old post for Flashback Fridays.  In light of reading about an 88 year old World War II veteran dying at the hands of a couple of teenagers.  It may not have anything to do with it, it may have.  All I know is I don’t remember being as much as of an asshole as the current teenage generation.  This was originally posted on February 12th of last year.

 

My wife and I took my son to his Scout awards program today.  It certainly wasn’t worth the 3 hours time there for the 5 minutes my son got his awards.  Part of that time was eating so it’s forgivable.  It was a carry in so lots of food.  But here’s my gripe.

What happened to sitting and keeping your kids quiet?  I understand giving them something to do to keep the occupied, but bring a whole freaking set of toys.  And not only that, but it was the kind of toy that made noise.  As was evident when we were having a moment of silence for a scout leader in the hospital.  All was quiet, except for that damn toy.  And the grandparent sitting next to the kid giggling because of the toy making noise during the moment of silence.

Maybe I’m just a dick of a parent, I don’t know.  My son sat there quietly during the awards.  While the damn kids behind us were playing and talking so loudly that we couldn’t hear half of what was being said.  The kids sitting in front of us were playing angry birds.  What happened to giving respect to the person up front talking.  Or how about after we were done eating when a bunch of kids were shooting baskets and dribbling basketballs at the hoop right next to the tables.  WHERE THE HELL ARE THESE KIDS PARENTS!

I realize that this thing is boring to the kids, but wouldn’t that be a teaching experience of why you have to sit and behave to show RESPECT.  Because let’s face it, kids have no respect for nothing, including themselves anymore.  And you can say it’s because of the other kids they hang with or all the electronics, TV, music, games, ect.  It all starts at home.  When you teach respect, you get respect.  Instead of trying to pacify your kids with electronics, try being a parent, and making them sit still.

All the parents, come here and gather around, I have a secret for you.  Closer.  A little closer.  Here it is.  Your in charge, not your kid.  I’ll give you a minute to let that sink in.  I don’t know what the hell happened when parents became afraid of the kids.  The kids should be afraid of the parents.  You can love your kids and have loving, close moments with your kids, but when it comes to them doing things they shouldn’t, they should be afraid of what is going to happen when you find out.  And they should fear that you will find out.  Because you ALWAYS find out.

I understand why kids do the stupid things they do, because if I could get away with it at that age, I would have too.  But I was afraid of what would happen.  That’s right, I grew up with consequences to my actions.  Kids now-a-days have no consequences to their actions.  I see it everyday.  There is no way in hell that my kids are going to talk to me the way I see kids talk to their parents out in public and certainly not at home.  You know why, because my kids are AFRAID of what will happen if they do.  And there is plenty you can do without laying a hand on them, for all you people screwing up your kids by not spanking.  Find what they love, and take it away.  Oh yeah, that’ll get their attention.  My kids get grounded from electronics.  All of them.  No TV, no mp3, no video games, nothing that takes batteries or electricity.  Minor offenses denotes an earlier bed time.  But, they do know, I’m not above spanking them.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had too, but they know I will.  Which makes them afraid.  Which keeps them in line.  Sure, they test their limits to see what they can get away with.  My brother and I did too, but we didn’t dare cross that line.  You know why?  We were AFRAID of our parent.

Kids and Social Media

My daughter brought home a letter from the school today.  Saying that there has been some instance’s of cyber bullying coming to light.  In the freaking 5th grade.  The letter was long, posted some rules about electronic devices but basically it said that parent’s need to monitor their kids better when it comes to Social Media.  While I do agree with the intent behind the letter.  I really want to send the principle an e-mail and say I realize that there is only so much the school can do and I’m not against what the letter said, but let’s face it, most parents don’t care what their kids are doing online as long they are entertained and out of their hair.

My daughter has a Facebook account and has limited access to the internet at home.  The access has parental controls as well as I get an e-mail telling me every website she has visited which is mostly just Facebook.  And as far as the Facebook account goes, she doesn’t know the email or password associated with the account.  So she can only access it when Cheri and I are around.  And every notification she gets on it is also emailed to me.  Almost all of her friends are family members and I’ve even had to hide 1 of them because she’s early 20’s and tends to cuss a lot.  She does have a few friends from school, but not many.  All friend request go through me which means I look at their accounts after approval and before I let her look.  I approved one friend that after I approved her, I checked her wall a week or so later and there was sexual like content plus her profile pic had the F word in it twice.  I posted about that here.  She was defriended immediately and I’ve had to turn down friend requests from her more than once.  She doesn’t know the word no, I’m guessing.

Since then, I’ve been to this girls house and seen that she lives with her grandparents and an uncle while her father stays out back in some sort of shed.  She has her own laptop and cellphone.  At freaking 10 years old.  I understand it’s probably real hard for the grandparents to raise this kid but you can’t let them do whatever you want either.  I’ve already told Samantha that I won’t even discuss a cellphone until at least 13 and that’s just discussing it, that’s not a yes your getting one.  It doesn’t help that the school system that my kids go to is in a rich kind of area.  So a lot of the kids parents can afford to give their kids the nicer things.  If you go to the high school, you’ll see all kinds of Beamers and Mercedes in the parking lot.  They are spoiled beyond belief.  I sent them to this school system because it’s the best in the area, academically and athletically.  It’s also the high school I graduated from.  But anytime there is a school function, Cheri and I just feel out of place.  While we are still considering a house in this school system, it is not at the top of our list anymore.  There’s more issues I have with it but I’m getting off track.

These kids that got caught, or told on, I don’t really know what happened, on Instagram.  Which means they probably all had cell phones.  The school’s rules basically leave it up to the teacher to post the rules of the classroom.  They are allowed to have them at school as long as they aren’t disruptive and if a teacher says he doesn’t want to see them, then they have to be put away.  I think the school rules at that age should be no cell phones out period.  You can have them on you and have them out at lunch and recess but any other time in the school they should be put away.  At this age, all after school activities are planned from this time, to this time.  You know what time to pick up your kid.  There is no need for a cell phone to call a parent when practice is over.  Junior High, maybe.  Elementary, no.

I can’t believe I’m actually having to deal with this stuff already.  I thought I’d at least get her to Junior High before this became an issue.  What makes this worse, was I had planned on posting a post about my Social Media Addiction.  I guess I had this coming.

My kid and Facebook

For those that don’t know, Samantha is 10 and yes, I allow her a Facebook account.  But she’s only allowed to log in around Cheri or I, she doesn’t even have the email or password that I set up for her so she can’t log in elsewhere.  So yes, I allow her a Facebook account, but I monitor everything she does.  Which is what happened today.

I knew something was up when Samantha got a friend request from some guy in Africa who had a mutual friend of this classmate.  I denied the request and let it go figuring the classmate is like most kids and friends everyone they know and don’t know.  It’s stupid, but kids do it, and I approve all of Samantha’s friends so it wasn’t a big deal.  But it made me wonder what’s up with this kid.

She started chatting with the classmate on Facebook the last few days.  I told Samantha it was time to log off on Saturday (yes, I monitor her time), she told the classmate and the classmate kept asking why this and why that.  I finally took the laptop and put – This is Samantha’s dad, I told her it was time to log off and she’ll log off.  It isn’t time for 20 questions.  Then closed it.  Again, I overlooked it because the classmate is like most kids now-a-days and has no boundaries.  It’s sad, but it’s very true.  I see it all the time.

Then tonight, I was changing some settings on the kids user name and I went through her messages back and forth, nothing big there.  Just hey this, hey that.  Basic 10 year old stuff.  I don’t think either of them completed a full sentence.  But then I noticed her profile picture, something wasn’t right about it.

You can see what I circled.  The bottom right is obvious, the top right says “Fuck me, I’m famous”.  What the hell?  So I start scrolling through her timeline, and it doesn’t take me long before I came across a picture of 2 toys, kind of paper clip like but not quite, in a sexual position, and she puts “Does anyone see what they are doing?” or something to that effect.  I immediately went and unfriended her.  I wish I would have copied that picture over here first but I just wanted her gone.

Now tomorrow, I have to be the mean dad and tell her that she can’t chat with her on Facebook anymore.  Or Cheri might have to since I work till 7.

What I want to know is where the hell is this kids parents?  I’m really tempted to contact her parents to tell them but it’s apparent to me that they don’t care.  I have a phone number for the classmate but I don’t know if it’s her parents or hers.  Samantha tends to think that she has her own laptop so it wouldn’t surprise me that she would have her own cellphone.  I feel like I could probably contact their teacher and have him contact the parents but I don’t want to make it a school issue.  One side of me says it’s none of my business and to leave it alone.  I would want someone to tell me if it was the other way around but I also tend to be a lot more strict with my kids than most.  And I get the feeling, most parents don’t want to know.  They’d probably get upset at me, I know it’s the negativity I have towards other parents because I believe most just don’t care anymore.  That’s why kids are the way they are.  Not all, or even most, but there are a lot of them that don’t respect adults, use adult language and all in all, pay little mind to anything or anyone around them.  It all starts with the parents.  I believe I spoke of this before in the post “Be AFRAID, Be Very AFRAID.”  You should go read that if you’ve made it this far, it’s one of my better posts but was before I really had a following.

Parenting Technique’s

We all have differences in parenting techniques. Some people think the way I do things are crazy and I believe some of the things other parents do are crazy. One way Cheri and I differ are letting them do things on their own.  I'm all about letting them do things on their own, that's how they learn.  Cheri is more of a worrier which I guess in most cases is what the mother does.

Sometimes its little things like letting your child go free at Walmart while you shop, to bigger things like driving.  I took Skyler for her first driving lesson, I'm more built that way emotionally because I'm very laid back and I never yell.  So off we went.  We headed out to the country and I asked her if she's driven yet, she said she had but out in a field.  Her mother thought she should start off in a neighborhood so once I got out in the country, I pulled into the entrance of a neighborhood and we switched seats.  Then drove out of the neighborhood, that counts, right?  We took back roads all the way out to a local small town.  I won’t go into how she did, let’s just say, thank God her mom wasn’t in the car.  I’m not sure how a 16 year old doesn’t know what a stop sign means but that’s how you learn.  We eventually made it into the town.  It’s a one stoplight town that extends a block away in all 4 directions from that stop sign.  She did pretty good in town when other cars were around, she was a lot more careful.  Then she did a lot better all the way back to that neighborhood.  I threw her in and she did fine, eventually.  (Not that I take credit for her driving ability now, yikes!)

Skyler is flying back to Virginia for Christmas.  I asked why she doesn’t just drive?  Cheri gave me a WTF are you thinking look.  She has made the trip once before but she was following her mom home, so it’s not like she hasn’t been on the highways.  I understand she scares the crap out of her because she just doesn’t pay attention.  But I’m the more, go for it, let’s see what happens, kind of parent.  She’ll have to learn how to do it sooner or later.  I’m pretty sure she’s probably driven on a few interstates without us knowing anyways.  Now Cheri says that she and her mom couldn’t survive the worrying if she was to drive it.  But guess what?  You’re a parent, you’ll never stop worrying about her.  When Cheri and I were dating 600 miles apart, my mom worried about me making the trip.  I was by myself and I would tend to leave right after work and drive 9 hours.  Sometimes through the night.  Your always going to worry.  Cheri used to drive the same trip when she was 16, I used to drive to St. Louis which is around 400 miles when I was 16.  I know she can do it.

I don’t care if she flies, I just think it would be cheaper to drive.  I would rather drive it so I have a car there.  So I can take more stuff instead of limiting myself to a bag or two (not that I would need more than a bag, but she’s a teenage girl, we know how they are).

I’m not saying either way is right, we just parent differently.  What kind of parent are you, throw them in and let them sink or swim or do you tend to take the cautious route so you have less to worry about?

Anger reminder

I was having a conversation with one of the troop people at Boy Scouts this evening. She told me there would be an awards ceremony coming up in another couple of Saturdays. I don't think Trevor has even been to one of these ceremonies in the last few years. They are usually on the weekends and the kids spend most weekends with TheEx.  And it got me all pissed off again, I give the kids to her every weekend because she didn't like only seeing them every other weekend. I can understand that, I would feel the same way. Where I get pissed off is where I sign them up for scouts and sports and then when they fall on the weekends, she's to lazy to bring them. What pisses me off even more is the excuse she usually uses is she doesn't have the money for gas. Yet, her husband (the JackAss), drives back and forth to Ft. Wayne (about an hour, one way) for work. And they just moved further away from her work so it’s probably half an hour drive one way for her as well.  Then with all the complaining about money, they eat out with the kids, or go places.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she does things with the kids, but how about supporting them in their activities to.  I don't know that she has been to any of their scouting activities. She does come to a few of their baseball/softball games as long as they are at the home park, but if it's any further than that, you can count her out.

For the record, the whole reason she uses the money excuse is because a year ago I took her for child support because she wasn't paying the few things she was supposed to that we agreed on when we separated. So essentially, she punishes the kids because I begged the judge and was awarded a whopping $27/week.

The sad thing is, if you ask the kids about me, they’d reference school, scouts and sports.  Those things don’t even get associated with her.  So I have them when there are activities during the week, and they get to hang out and do stuff on the weekends with their mom.  I know that this is just the way it is, but it sucks.

They love her to death, because they don't realize what little she does for them. I'm waiting for the day when it happens and it bites her in the ass. Samantha sees some of it now and it's only a matter of time before she starts acting out towards her. I can't wait for that glorious day.

As far as the awards ceremony, I don't think I'm working that Saturday. Maybe I'll see if I can take him. It sucks being the responsible parent.

I’m sorry for bitching to you, but I typed up most of this while Trevor was doing his Boy Scouts.  They had an outside project so I sat in the car and typed on the Kindle.  I did listen to music to so you get a track of the day to go with the bitching.

I selected this song (Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden) just because while I do like it, it reminds me of this song.

More Randomness

Not a whole lot going on around here.  I am in the midst of my 5 12 hour days this week so I don’t have a whole lot of time.  I had yesterday and today off but I just can’t get going to do anything for this blog.  This morning, I got up and took the kids to school, then came back home and crawled back into bed.  I just couldn’t wake up.  I ended up sleeping until after 11.  I got home and my thought process was either I go back to sleep now or end up falling asleep on the couch later, I was that tired.  Don’t worry though, I never got out of my pj’s to take the kids to school.

I don’t look that cute in my Michigan pj’s though!

The kids are back in school now, in case you didn’t figure that out in the first paragraph.  So that’s less time with theEx and the JackAss so I haven’t had to deal with either of them much.  And let’s face it, I get great blog material from him.

We moved our oldest daughter into her campus apartment last weekend.  It was sad for her mother but I actually think her living on campus is a good thing for her and for her mother.  I think their relationship will be better now that they aren’t living together and getting on each other’s nerves.  And I definitely think Skyler needs to learn to be on her own.  Not to actually be on her own, because she was more or less that here, but to be actually responsible for cleaning up after herself.  The student housing is pretty awesome.  It’s more or less an apartment.  You walk in her door and it’s a small living room with a kitchen to the right.  Down the hall is 2 bedrooms and a bathroom.  She got the first bedroom and then the 2nd bedroom has a bathroom in it as well.  So both girls get their own bathrooms.  You have to be buzzed in to even get to her apartment door.  Then a lock on the apartment door and she also has a lock with a key to get into her bedroom door.  So it’s very safe and secure and we were happy about that.  It helps us feel a little better about her being on her own.  We might worry a bit more than most but she is still only 17 because she graduated from high school a year earlier.

I text her after her first day of classes and ask how it felt to officially be a college student now.  I got no response.  And that annoyed me, maybe it shouldn’t but it did.  If it was up to me, I would have got online and put it stop to all her texting.  The way I think is if I’m paying your cell phone bill, the least you could do is respond when I send you a text.  But I have no control over her, I tried to get her to respect me but I didn’t get the support that I needed.  So it is what it is.  I love her and I’ll miss her but I have to just accept the fact that since I am no longer apart of her daily life, that I will probably be in very little of it.

On the positive side, the experience got me to create my first e-card.  I thought about the wording while I was at work and created the actual card when I got home.  The other positive side with Skyler moving out is that Samantha gets her own room now.  Cheri went in and cleaned and rearranged it so it felt more like her own room.  Sam loves it.  And I love that Sam is getting a little more appreciative of Cheri.  Their relationship has gotten better in the last few months as well.  Although, I’m not sure Cheri is happy about it.  She said, she liked it better when Samantha was afraid of her because now she talks non-stop to her.  The non-stop talking does get annoying but I know it’s Samantha’s way of showing Cheri that she likes her.  And I love that my kids are finally getting along with her.  I feel like we are more of a family.  I wish Skyler would have taken to having younger siblings and then things would have been even better but I didn’t really to expect that to happen.  That’s a lot to ask from a teenager (15 at the time) to all of the sudden get thrown together with a 8 and a 6 year old.

We are going to talk to a realtor today about finding out if we can purchase a house or if we need to keep renting for a year or two until we can.  I’ve been through this process with theEx when we were together and it never ended well.  But I do better with my credit and Cheri actually contributes financially to the household.  I could never count on that with theEx.  I’m trying to be positive about it, but every time I’ve tried in the past, I’ve been shot down.  But this is the first time with Cheri, she’s made my life better, maybe she’s my lucky charm on getting a house.

So with the relationships here getting stronger, and the lack of dealing with theEx and the JackAss lately.  It’s been a good couple of weeks.  The White Sox are still in 1st place, Michigan football starts this Saturday, I’m going to my first White Sox game this year, a week from tomorrow.  Definitely doing pretty good.  Now if work didn’t suck ass, it might be even better.

WTF Did They Just Say?

Welcome to a Special Edition of WTF did they just say? Why a special edition,  because this comes courtesy of my ex-wife’s husband, (the JackAss) and he’s a moron.

First off, I had to tell him to stop texting me because he just lies with everything he says.  He used to make fun of theEx to me, saying all kinds of things, including how he hoped she would leave him, ect.  I finally had a sit down with theEx  and told her about these texts and even showed them to her.  Then he got really pissed at me, cussed me out, blah, blah, blah.  I never respond to anything he texts me.  If you know me, you can call me whatever you want, I really don’t care what anyone thinks of me.

Anyways, this is theEx and Cheri.

The white text on the left is my ex, the green is my wife.  I had forgotten to send one of Trevor’s pills to her house for the one day she was watching him.  Just spaced it, my fault.

And the last green box from Cheri when she put “accuse”, they have accused her of all kinds of things.  All of them being wrong.  They once cussed me out because they said she threw out a coat they had bought Trevor.  I forwarded a picture of it hanging in Trevor’s closet.  Didn’t get a sorry or nothing.  Just a “Oh, Trevor said you threw it away”.  How about asking instead of accusing, dumb ass.

Sorry, I got sidetracked, but the sidebar was necessary to expand on why she put accuse in quotes.  In my opinion, it was justified.  I have no idea why theEx even text Cheri instead of me.  She said because she knew I was at work, but she also knows I text all day long at work, so who the hell knows.  I’d be rich if I could explain why they do the stupid shit that they do.

Now here is where her idiot husband comes in.  You’ll notice the spelling and text in general difference when he texts, that’s how we can tell when he’s doing it from her phone.

Now, after the first bubble up there, Cheri calls Tina, she doesn’t answer. A big shocker there because she has no backbone. Cheri left a voicemail explaining the same thing she put in the text above about why I forgot to send the pill, and told her that she does feed and clothe the children and if she isn’t women enough to answer her phone, then stop texting her.

Then she gets the next bubble on the left.  Meanwhile, Cheri keeps calling because they won’t answer the phone and she keeps receiving texts.  Finally, Wayne answers.  Cheri says “Do you feel better now?”  Their response, Wayne-“I feel better, Tina, do you feel better?”  Tina mumbled something and then Wayne said “Yeah, we feel better.”  Cheri said your making a big deal because we forgot to send 1 pill when you went for months, purposely not giving them to him?  Why not just say, hey guys, I ran out of pills, can you remember to send some next time?”  Wayne did some bitching, then said “The kids don’t even like you” he puts it on speaker phone and then ask “Hey kids, do you even like Cheri?” and then they responded “NO!!!”  Then Cheri said “Well that’s some good parenting right there, involving the kids.  You have a pleasant day” and hung up.

Now did you read all that?  you have ms.more stupid.  WTF?  Did she marry a 5 year old?

During all this, I was at work and Cheri didn’t tell me until after I got off because she knew that I’d be pissed, and she was right.  My hands were shaking I was so pissed.  I tried calling Tina when I got home and of course she didn’t answer.  I don’t have screen capture on my phone so I’ll have to type out the text I got.

“What do u need.” – Wayne

“For you to answer your phone.” – me

“Why.to complain like your wife.” – Wayne (copied like it is, I’m not that stupid.)

“Give the phone to Tina and tell her to call me.” – me

“Che doesnty wanty to talk to you or your wife.and if u have a problem with me take I up with me.not her.u no need” – Wayne

“Typical Tina, no spine.” – me

“You no.you day is comeimg very soon if i was u i would shut the fuck up because i will come to you and shut u up myuself im tired of your bad additude twords my wife.hope u can defend ur self.i tried being nice for the kids sake but I dont give a fuck bring it on jeff” – Wayne

After that I didn’t respond.  Do you realize how hard it was to type that out and keep uncorrecting the spell check and lower casing the I’s.  #1 – Other than saying she had no spine, I have never made fun of her.  He, on the other hand, has said all kinds of things about her.  I have the text’s on my phone to prove it.  #2 -

This is him, or her, or whatever.  Everybody I know that has met him, or her, has asked me if he was a guy.  He looks like a very butch woman.  So yeah, not afraid of that.  He’s the typical bully that will text anything he wants but has no balls (probably really, no balls) to say anything to me in person.

So when I pick up the kids from Tina that night.  I have the kids get in my car and ream her out.  (Sidenote – when I say ream, I mean lecture. I don’t ever yell.  Ask anyone.)  Asking her if she wants to lose the kids because that’s what’s going to happen if she can’t control her husband.  I told her (and not for the first time) that the only time we have issues is when her husband gets involved.  Tina and I get along fine until he opens his yap, or should I say, types with his fingers.  I have issues with Tina, yes, but nothing big until he’s in the mix.  I also reamed her out for not taking Samantha to her softball practice on Sunday afternoon.  I told her I do everything I can to get you more time with the kids, every weekend and most days off school, and this is what I have to deal with. I left it with this, and I’ll direct quote it for you.

“And tell your husband, he knows where I live, come on over anytime when the kids aren’t home.  You better get a leash on your bitch before I put him down”

On the way home, I reamed out my kids for saying what they did, but I didn’t punish them further because they never should have been involved in the first place.  But that doesn’t change the fact that I was extremely disappointed with both of them.

Then later that night, I send a text to Tina telling her Samantha has a game Tuesday night so I need her bat bag before then.  No response.  So Monday morning, I send the text again.  No response.  So I started to send the same exact text every hour.  All in all, I sent 7 text’s before I got a response.  Here’s how that went.

“Ity at ur moms” – Wayne

“What?” – me

“We tyook tyo yourt mommys house big boy.its on the porch.” – Wayne

So deciphered, they dropped it off at my mom’s on her porch.  But once again, you see who’s answering her phone.  So I no longer can communicate with the mother of my children because he controls everything she does now.

He’s such an idiot.  Do you see what I have to deal with.  I have never tried to take the kids from their mother, but at this point, I just want her to go away.  And I have no problem kicking his ass, but I was raised to not start fights.  But I guarantee if he swings at me, I’m tearing him apart.  And if you know me, I am not violent in any way.

I’m a bad dad who loves stats and hands out badges

Is it bad when your kids think the Tooth Fairy comes while they are at school?  Trevor came home from school and showed us his gap where the tooth was.

Me:  Where is the tooth?

Trevor:  It’s underneath my pillow but the Tooth Fairy didn’t come.

Me:  When did it fall out?

Trevor:  Last night.

Me:  Well, maybe the tooth fairy didn’t get a chance to schedule his stop here since it happened while you were in bed.

Trevor:  She must have been busy because she usually comes while we are at school.

Me:  Um, maybe she’ll come tonight.

Bad parenting 101 – Try to remember to put the money under the pillow that night.

Now this time it wasn’t my fault.  I didn’t even know about it until today.  But I probably would have forgotten either way.  I have, on more than one occasion, slipped $1 between my fingers and took the kids in their rooms the next day, lifted up their pillow while at the same time dropping the $1.  “See, there it is, you just must have missed it this morning.”

I’ve gone and checked out a new Social Media site.  GetGlue.com.  You check in on what TV shows or movies your watching.  Or check in to what your reading or listening to.  It’s supposed to be a site where you chat about what your doing.  Such as, if your watching “The Walking Dead” (best show on TV, by the way) then you check in and you can chat with other people watching the show.  I don’t ever use the chat.  But I log in to what I’m watching.  When you watch so many episodes, you earn stickers.  Supposedly, after you earn so many, they actually ship you real stickers.  I haven’t been on it long enough to know if that’s true or not.  I like stats, I keep stats on my life.  I keep track of how much money I spend on sports cards ($, yeah, not telling you that).  I keep track of where and how often I eat out (Taco Bell – 18 times in 2012).  I keep track of what and where I watch movies (11 Netflix DVD’s in 2012).  I keep track of how many sporting events I watch (13 Michigan basketball games in 2012).  And with this site, I can track of what TV I watch as well.  Although, for the record, I only log in to new episodes that I’m watching.  Not every show, because let’s face it, if I’m home, the TV is on.  I don’t know why I keep those stats.  But I do.  Don’t judge me, I like numbers.  You can blame my dad for that.  I don’t even do anything with the numbers I keep, I just keep adding to them.  Eventually I’ll realize how stupid it is and I’ll delete the page.  I used to keep track of how many hours I slept, but the average per night didn’t vary much after a month, so I deleted that stat (around 6 1/2 hours average).  I have a sickness.  I can’t help it.  Is there a support group for people who like stats?

“Hello, my name is Jeff, and I’m a stat-a-holic”

“HELLO JEFF.  Welcome to stat-a-holics.  Where we have supported 225 people and graduated 204 for a graduation rate of 90.6%.  Damn it, no stats.  My bad.  I forget that I’m not supposed to use stats 86.7% of the time.  Damn it.  I suck.  Change that to 203 for a graduation rate of 90.2%.  Son of a Bitch.”

I have problems.  By the way, you can click the GetGlue.com logo above to check out my profile and see what I’ve been watching for the last few days.

I came across some badges.

“BADGES, WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING BADGES”

Sorry, anyways.  I came across some badges that I want to give to my wife.  I love her with all my heart and think she deserves some awards.  If I was smarter, I’d wait another night to do this because she’s been a little moody tonight.  But I’m not that smart.  I don’t know how she could be moody considering we are watching baseball.  I mean, if baseball can’t brighten your day, I don’t know what can.

 

First.    Yep, you read that right.  Remember when I talked about me being antisocial, well, so is she.  But she loves her cat.  More than anybody else that lives in our household.  She won’t admit it, but we know better.

Second.    If it were up to her, she would never leave the house.  She does, but only because she has to.  I can’t really say anything, I would be right there with her.  But I do get the hankering to leave every so often, but she doesn’t.

And last but not least.    Hehe.  Sorry honey!  I have to tell the story behind this one.  We went to Red Lobster for lunch one day.  We love the cheddar biscuits.  After lunch we did some shopping, stopped by my mom’s for the evening.  Then went home.  Cheri went to brush her teeth and get ready for bed.  She came out and was mad at me.  “What did I do?” I said.  Her reply, “You let me walk around all day with the parsley flakes in my teeth.”  Ooops.  Again, sorry honey.

These badges are just a joke, honey.  I don’t want to wake up with you holding my pillow over my head, again.

Parents are stupid

As you know, they asked me to run one of the baseball teams at little league.  Well, the whole story is that they had 5 teams of 13-14 kids per team.  So they created a 6th team and begged me to coach.  This way, each team has 10-11 kids and every kid gets more playing time.  My team is even sponsored by the little league park, so they are paying for it just to give the kids more playing time.

I talked to the lady that helps run the park with her husband.  She said that more than a few of the parents have been bitching because their kids got moved after practicing with another team.  OK, this is an instructional league.  Which means no score is kept, you play against other teams but the rules are pretty laid back.  You can even stop the game to talk to a player and explain what he did wrong or what a better way to do it would be.  INSTRUCTIONAL.  Which means it doesn’t matter what team your on, we are all there to teach the kids.  You’ll find coaches helping the players on the other teams.  INSTRUCTIONAL.  We are here to help your kids learn the game and to get better.  Not coddle the damn parents because all your other favorite moms are on the other teams.  It’s freaking ridiculous.  It doesn’t matter if your kid had to switch teams, we don’t even keep score.  It’s INSTRUCTIONAL.  And do you know what the big problem is, the lady mentioned above called the parents, father usually answers, says yeah, no problem.  I understand, more playing time for my son, great.  Then she’ll receive a call a little bit later from the mother, bitching up a storm how her kid doesn’t want to switch.  These kids are 7-8 years old.  They don’t care what team they are on, YOU’RE the one that doesn’t want to switch.  Because you like to hang out with the other mothers on the other team.

I had one mother who I was having a conversation with, she was pleasant and curious.  She asked me if I’ve ever taught baseball.  I told her I hadn’t, because I haven’t.  Other than my kids.  I’ve been an assistant coach on my daughters team every year she’s played, which she is going on her 5th year.  I know and love this game.  I played through school and played softball for 10+ years.  I can probably teach every position, throwing and hitting.  But technically, I’ve never “taught” baseball.  She apparently called the lady and told her that I said I know nothing about the game and wanted to switch teams.

I’m really hoping a parent says something to me.  I will not hold back.  And neither will my wife, who will be sitting up there beside them while I’m coaching.  Or my mom, as far as that goes.  Parents are stupid and need to remember why their kids are playing.  And it’s not for the parents.  IT’S FOR YOUR FUCKING KIDS!!!!!

WTF Did They Just Say?

This is a special edition of WTF Did They Just Say? because I’m plugging a TV show.  If you get a chance, watch “Impractical Jokers” on TruTV.  It is hilarious.  These 4 guys who have been friends for years have to do challenges and complete them.  Each guy goes through the challenge but here’s the catch.  He’s wearing an earbud and can hear the other 3 and the challenge is, you have to do whatever they tell you, or you lose.  Here’s a clip.

Here’s another clip, if you can find this whole episode, it is hilarious.  The guy that wins steals from a lady’s plate, then she tells her husband and he comes over to him at the buffet.  Takes food from the buffet then when the guy goes to take off his plate, he smacks his hand.  The husband goes and sits down and the guy stalks him to his table and goes after his plate.  Here’s the beginning of that prank.

They do multiple challenges in a half an hour episode, then whoever loses the most challenges, has to do a dare that the other 3 decide.  Such as this.

My wife and I laugh so hard watching these.  My eyes usually hurt from wiping the tears off from laughing.  If you have a chance, you have to catch an episode of this.  I have Comcast cable and they have it On Demand, I don’t know about anybody else but if you have On Demand, look for it.  Otherwise, I believe it’s on Thursday nights on TruTV.

I stuck this on WTF Did They Just Say? because the reactions from the everyday people on here is hilarious.  Usually they are just stunned and have a look on their face that says “WTF Did They Just Say?”

Insane in the Membrane

I had a song stuck in my head this morning.  A nice, slow song.  I whistled and sang it for hours.  But the bad part was, I sang it to Adam.  He looked at me and said “I’m glad I don’t know that song”.

Damn kids these days, don’t know good music.  I offered to load it up on my Spotify but he didn’t want to hear it.

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Tantrums & Annoyance

I just read a post about how to deal with tantrums in your child right here.
I must admit, that I have, on a few occasions, dealt with this myself.
I sat down to get at their level, I looked them in the eye and said something like this,

“Oh!  Come on!  If your going to pout go all out, you can do better than that.  How do you expect to get what you want if that’s the effort your going to put into it. Come on!  Cry a little harder that.”

For the record, it worked.  But I’m guessing after that, you won’t ask me for any parenting advice. 


How long did it take before you were annoyed?  I know, I’m an ass.

Just threw this up real quick before I head to bed.  It’s going to be a busy week, not sure when I’ll be able to post some more.  Monday night (practice), Tuesday (Supper at my moms), Wednesday (Practice), Thursday (practice), Friday (practice) and of course I work Mon-Fri so that pretty much books my day.  The little league called me and said they found another sponsor and wanted to know if I wanted to coach the team.  I told them I don’t mind being an assistant but I don’t want to be the head coach.  I don’t mind the baseball duties, I don’t want all the additional stuff like organizing which parent brings team snacks and such.  I just want to help the kids learn how to play correctly.  I have a feeling they won’t be able to find anyone and I’ll get stuck with the job anyways.  So we’ll see.

Randomness

Tuesday already?  It’s been a slow week already and they didn’t waste anytime on posting Saturday this weekend so it’ll be a 6 day week.  There’s still rumors going around about them still posting Sunday.  Considering once they post Saturday, production drops each day.  I’d say we will work it.  Especially with the 3 day weekend next week.

Samantha’s teacher is starting to piss me off.  I got a phone call from him on Friday just before he left the school.  I was in the shower so he left a voicemail saying that he needed to talk to me about summer options for Samantha.  So I’m assuming that once again, Samantha is going to be taking another session of summer school.  But that’s not the part that pisses me off.  Well, it does, but not at her teacher.  He told me to call him back and leave a voicemail, or email him and let him know when the best time for him to call me back was.  So I emailed him, told him anytime after 3:30, or he could text the number or he could email me back and I’ll stop by after work and talk to him face to face.

It’s now been 2 days since he’s gone back to school and I still haven’t heard anything from him.  Don’t freaking call me and want me to return the call if your not going to respond.  Now here I am, wondering if my daughter is going to have to miss Girl Scouts camp again.  Wondering if I need to punish her for lack of effort.  Wondering if she’s just not as smart as I think she is.  Wondering if she has a learning disability.  Wondering if she’s going to grow up to be a serial killer.

Ok, maybe not that bad, but you get the point.  I’d rather know the verdict on whether she needs to go or not.  Plus I want to talk to him to find out if she’s just not getting it, or she being a chatty Cathy and not paying enough attention.  Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that about her.

Wife and I sat down to watch “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” tonight and I pulled the DVD out of the Netflix envelope and thought WTF?

I went ahead and stuck it in the DVD player even though it was a burned copy.  I figured I could hopefully at least still watch the movie.  But I sat down at my laptop and loaded up the Netflix site and went to report the issue.  I know my luck and if I sent this back, I’ll have the freaking FBI at my doorstep with a warrant because they’ll think I burned a copy.  We’ve all read the warnings.  There wasn’t really an option to report this kind of problem so I found their support 24 hour phone number and called it.

I get the lady on the line and tell her “I received the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in the mail and it’s a burned copy.”

She started laughing and said “I don’t know why the manufacturer did that”

Amongst our conversation, she told me that a bunch of people have called in about it.  She said they had to Google it because they don’t ever see the DVD’s either.

I guess now that I look at the DVD closer, it has a rating on it, that should have given it away.  I felt like a dumb ass but at least she was cool about it.  We were both laughing the whole time.

I’d like to get back into reading books again, which means I need to cut down some of the blogs I read.  So I’m going to be deleting some out of my Google Reader sometime this week.  I follow a few MS ones where the patients are really bad off.  I’m not going to follow those anymore because one, I’m not dealing with someone who is that bad off yet (and hopefully never will be).  Two. it’s depressing to know that my wife may end up like them in the future.  Most of those that I’m deleting have the MS where the symptoms are there most of the time, where my wife has the remitting kind where the symptoms come for a few days then goes away.

So it’s not that I don’t appreciate these bloggers and what they are going through.  If I had the time, I would keep reading them.  But I have to delete some and those are the ones that will lose out.

Also some of the mommy blogs will go.  Mainly the ones that deal with their autistic kids.  Again, it isn’t that I don’t appreciate what they are going through, but it doesn’t help me any.  So I’ll be weeding some out throughout the week.  I’m averaging about 2 days behind as it is now so I need to get those down so I can enjoy books again.  Kim Harrison’s latest “The Hollows” book is out now and it’s on top of the list.  I need to finish the Harry Dresden series too.  Plus I’ve probably gotten about 20 free books on my Kindle that I plan on getting to as well.

I know this is a long post, but I want to leave you with one more thing before I go.  My daughter just got done in the shower and I sat outside the bathroom door for about 5 minutes waiting for her to come out.  I scratched at the door like I was the cat wanting in, she opened it, didn’t see the cat, then shut it again.  So I kept scratching but she didn’t come out.  So I just sat in wait.  Here’s what happened.

Yes, I’m rocking my PJ’s with a hoodie.  That’s how I roll.  My son opened his door and said “Good scare, daddy”

Typing it out

Just a quick post to let you know I haven’t disappeared, entirely.  It’s been a busy week and yet it hasn’t.  Just been doing the usual stuff, Work, Girl Scouts, Work, Boy Scouts, Work and more Scouts.

Trevor had his pinewood derby today, or I guess yesterday since it’s after midnight.  It was pretty good, Trevor looked like he had a blast so it made everything worth while.  But I’ll discuss that later tomorrow (or today).  And I don’t really have anything to talk about now.  To be honest, I’m just kind of typing.  I feel like I have something to say and I hope it’ll just come out.

I guess it’s a good thing I don’t really have a whole lot of people interested in reading this blog so I can do a post about nothing.  Hey, it worked for Seinfeld didn’t it.  And just so you have my stance on Seinfeld, there were some hilarious episodes, but all in all, I didn’t really care for it.  I’ve caught episodes here and there, some awesome (“I WAS IN THE POOL”) and some pretty stupid ones.

Cheri has been struggling with her MS and other crap.  Between the fatigue kicking her ass most days and the pain in her backass, I wonder how she functions.  But she keeps pushing through it, usually for too long.  Today was a little rough on her.  The pinewood derby lasted about 5 hours, including lunch, so we brought her wheelchair in so she could sit somewhat comfortably.  It certainly isn’t comfortable, but better than those chairs they had there.  The worse part for her, I think, was some of the meds had made her sick, she had to go to the restroom because she thought she was going to throw up.  It eventually passed, but it certainly wasn’t fun for her.  She suffered through it like the trooper she is.  Then we get home and her daughter was up to her usual crap.  So basically Cheri dealt with heat and stress, like most days.  I did realize today why it bothers me so much that Skyler walks all over Cheri.  One of the attractions I have towards Cheri when we met was that she didn’t generally take crap from anyone.  She doesn’t go looking for confrontations and will try to avoid them, but she won’t back down from one if brought to her.  I like a woman with some backbone.  So when Skyler talks down to Cheri and Cheri backs down, it tears at my heart some.  Skyler takes advantage of her mom’s condition because Cheri has to avoid stress so she just backs down and in turn, Skyler gets whatever she wants.  She’ll be off to college soon and I guess I’m a bad parent because I’ll be glad when she’s gone.  She’s probably the main stress in Cheri’s life right now.  That and money which seems to be a big stresser lately as well.  But I’m not going into that today either.

I’m also having trouble getting over the fact that Cheri just thinks I like to get Skyler in trouble.  I asked a awhile back if she thinks I care about Skyler or I just like to get her in trouble.  I never got a response, which of course, tells me her response.  I told her if she thinks I won’t be following my own kids and trying to catch them in lies like I did with Skyler, then she doesn’t know me very well.  Because I will be on them like I was her.

So basically I can’t help her with the heat, as much as I would like to control the weather, I can’t.  And I can’t help her with her stress, I only make so much money and she won’t let me help with her daughter.  So for me, caregiver means helping with chores, rubbing her neck and backass and just being here for everything else.  I can’t help with her 2 main stressers.  So I guess I get a fail in the caregiver department.

So what we learned in the last 2 paragraphs is I suck at being a step-father, and I suck at being a caregiver.  Hooray is my life.

I guess I did have something to say.  Good thing my next post is about the pinewood derby, I promise it’ll be more positive than this one.  Maybe I should just go to bed.

Slow day of the Musically Challenged

Are you Jelly?

Today’s craving was?  Jelly Beans.  It must be spring because I was craving some Jelly Beans.  Good thing Easter is rolling around because if this craving doesn’t go away, it’ll be easier to satisfy.

WTF Parents

Have you heard about the huge protest over Nick Jr. because they took some show called “Moose and Zee” off the air.  Me neither, but the blogger over at http://stfuparentsblog.com did a 3 part post on them.  Here, here and here.  These parents are freaking crazy over their electronic babysitter.  I’ve been upset they took a show off the air, but seriously, these people are freaking nuts.  If your kids are that addicted to a TV show, the cancelling of the show is the least of your problems.  My kids have had their shows that they like to watch.  But they have never been so into a show that they even knew what time a it was on, let alone noticed they missed an episode.

Insane in the Membrane

This is starting to become a daily feature.  Which I guess doesn’t surprise me since I’m always getting stuff stuck in my head.  This morning we started off with this.
And I’m free, free fallin’
That’s really all I kept singing.  Over and over.  Tom Petty, all morning long.  Even belted it out a few times, got a few odd looks at work.  But today, I ended up with 3 songs in my head.  And I really have no clue where any of them came from.  The Tom Petty song I think I might have heard on “The Voice” last night.  But the other 2 songs, no idea.  After my first break, this is what I was singing.
sing us a song you're the piano man
sing us a song tonight
well we're all in the mood for a melody
and you got us all feeling alright
Ask Adam, he knows I had it in my head.  When I serenaded him from afar.  I like to sing the old 80’s songs to him because he’s like me and gets them stuck in his head.
And during my “happy time” as Frank likes to call it, I ended up with a 3rd song in my head.  Before I get to the song, I should probably explain my “happy time”.  When I get to work, I’m cranky, I’m tired, and I don’t really talk to anybody.  Then after my first break, I’m awake, more talkative, my usual self.  Then about 11 o’clock, I get really tired and sleepy.  Then after my lunch break, I’m wide awake and it’s my “happy time”.  I’m pumped to get the hell out of work and you can tell.  So back to the song, after break, it’s all about some Hall & Oates.
(Because your kiss) your kiss is on my list
(Because your kiss) your kiss is on my list
Because (your kiss is on my list) of the best things in life
(Because your kiss) your kiss is on my list
(Because your kiss) your kiss I can't resist
(Because your kiss is what I miss) when I turn off the light
Yeah, absolutely no idea where that one came from.  But such Is the life in the head of a musically challenged individual.