once more unto the week

midnight. so Monday went off as planned. up and out of the house by 6:09- a few minutes late, but managed to get Loren to Aunt Melissa, at the Sargents' house watching Ethan & Cole, in time to get to work by 7. had a fairly productive day at work. i'm not too sore overall, much less than normal. got paid; picked up Loren from Aunt Melissa's house, went to the P.U.D. and paid my overdue electric bill to avoid a service interruption, deposited my check, went to the grocery store for stuff for dinner. tomorrow we start work late, at 8:30am, a mixed bag. a little more sleep-in time in the morning, a little more traffic to deal with so a little longer commute. Loren will be spending the day with Aunt Nichole and Ethan and Cole; Plan B. he was going to stay at his Grampa's house but Dad's gonna be a little too busy tomorrow to accomodate it. looks like everyone's playing it by ear. made tacos for dinner, gave Loren some chores to do while i cooked. he finished his 'Dad homework' that i assigned him during his spring break. a little extra effort on writing in general and handwriting specifically. i had him write an entire page on whatever subjects he chose, so long as it was conversational and in coherent sentences. he made some punctuation errors (possessive apostrophes) and capitalization errors, and a couple spelling mistakes, but overall it was pretty good, and he finished the assignment without complaint. i fell asleep still sitting at the dinner table while we watched some Dragonball Z, but woke up a couple times and dragged my butt over to the couch, where i dozed some more while he took a shower. i finally managed to rouse myself at about 9:15 to complete a D&D adventure he'd set up. he likes to be the DM, and i played a couple first level characters he rolled plus one of my own. i nearly got us all killed being stubborn attacking some orcs at a bottleneck in his map- we barely escaped with our lives, but gained a (very) little experience and a couple gold pieces. let him have a donut and some hot chocolate for a snack and read some more of The Wishsong of Shannara, and he fell asleep while i read to him. it was my turn to rouse him this time, and got his teeth brushed before putting him to bed. and that brings us up to date on the mundania of the day.

it's been great having him here for a little extra time during spring break- too bad i had to argue with his mother about it. it's always an argument, every time a holiday or a school break comes and it's time for me to get a little extra time with him. Loren's mother always calls me selfish when i try to assert my parental rights; this time she had the nerve to tell me that she just assumed he was going to be at her house over spring break "because i had to work". of course i have to work, and since when does that change anything? she has this habit of getting down on me because i have family in this area and "have all this help" where she doesn't have any. she has this train of thought in which she should be treated as a part of my family. i've pointed out to her time and again that she was a part of this family and she chose not to be, and my (and my family's) responsibility for her ended when she left, but reason will only get you so far against her temper. when she's made up her mind about something, that's the end of the story, and anyone that disagrees with her better be prepared to pay the price. yesterday she became very upset that Loren wasn't going to be at her house to watch Phoenix while she attended her classes- never mind that she was the one who made the decision that Loren was going to be at my house for the beginning of his spring break week. Loren chose to spend the day with his Aunt Melissa (today). i mentioned to Melody (out of kindness) that possibly Melissa would be willing to watch Phoenix also, and that i'd be happy to ask her- which i did. Melissa was already watching Ethan and Cole though, and at Nichole's house at that, and with Loren on top of it, she didn't feel comfortable with Phoenix coming too. this left Melody in a bit of a bind, which brought on the whole 'you have help and i don't' argument, to which i said, "you have a husband; what's he doing to help take care of his son?" hard to argue with that. dealing with her is maddening at best. some people refuse to see when someone's going out of their way to be nice to them. i think the thing that really steams me the most is her assertion that i'm being selfish anytime i try to assert my rights as far as the time i'm scheduled to spend with Loren. since when is trying to be a good parent and live up to your obligations (as well as reap the benefits that go with them) being selfish? i shouldn't have to justify any amount of time i try to spend with him. it's a given; he's my son, i want to spend as much time with him as i can. i'll be glad when Loren's old enough to just come here whenever he wants; i'd lay heavy odds he'll spend more time here than he does now when the choice is his own. he seemed to enjoy today quite a bit and i'm happy for that. he's a good kid, he deserves to have some fun.

guess that's about it for now. a little minutiae, a little rant, a little account of some good times. i'd say that strikes a pretty fitting note for today.