I started this post tonight and wrote all kinds of things that were out of character for me. I was (still am) pissed off and angry. But there is no reason for me to sink to his level and behave as he has for so many years; calling names, pointing fingers, tearing him down (and God knows I have reason to while he sits there with little backing for any of his accusations).

What I guess I will say tonight is that while I cannot afford to give my kids the things they may want and more often than not, the things they may need to sustain LIFE, I do give them this...

I listen and I respond and I care. I hold them when they're sick or cry because the kitten in Oliver and Company (which they've seen a dozen times) may get eaten by those strays in the alley. When I haven't seen them in 5 days because my work schedule demands different hours from me than are truly functional to their lives on a "normal" schedule, we snuggle and laugh and play games and cook their favorite meals together. When I'm not actually at work and it isn't their 2 weekends a month with their father, I am at home being MOM to them. The same way I was when I was a stay at home mom for all those years.

Nothing is more important to me that seeing my children become the wonderful individuals I see them as now. I think that in order for this to become a reality, all the players in the game need to get on board. Meaning their dad, his parents, my mom and he and I, all need to be working together to raise them (since that is the choice I made when I asked him to leave). Had I known how difficult that seemingly simple task (I mean, this IS the raising of our kids, the singular thing he and I did together that serves any meaning in this world) would have been I would have probably stayed in that unhappy marriage and been home to be the mother that raised those kids by myself while he was away working. They would become great people for that.

Now, though, with all these other people involved in raising them, I question the people they will become. They behave best for me (an assumption based on the very LIMITED feedback I get from him). They are worst for his mother. I have known her longer than I have known him, this little fact isn't a surprise to me...especially considering the felon record he accrued over the years under her supervision.

What baffles me is that he has, apparently, little desire to put any work into being a parent to our kids. He really seems to love the title of, "Dad", but does little to act as a FATHER should. My kids deserve better than that. They are amazing little people with ideas and intelligence and insight he fails to see. Or maybe he does and just doesn't nurture it. What he told me tonight is that he won't discuss any of that with me. Which makes sense, right?, because why would you discuss your children with their mother??? I mean, I certainly don't call him every chance I get with news about them (sarcasm at its finest). We didn't spend more than a decade loving each other (as delusional of a 'love' as that may have been, in hindsight). So why communicate thoughts, concerns, daily happenings with them to one another?