Holidays
Things have been quiet. Well, quiet besides me taking too many classes this semester and being totally overwhelmed with school, work, kids and life in general.
A has been accepted to his first choice school, and is being schmoozed by the coaches, wanting him to play football. I’ve driven to the far end of Massachusetts twice now – but I guess they’d like him to come back again for an “official overnight visit”. Ugh, really?
Its been an interesting journey, trying to keep him on track with realistic expectations about how much work college actually is and how it will be VERY different than high school. But you all know how kids are – they know EVERYTHING already.
D has successfully joined the high school dive team. He’s participated in actual meets, and scored points for his team. He LOVES it! I am so happy that he’s found something like this. They practice 5 days a week, 2 hours per day. Its been very good for him!
Also, D has been discharged from counseling. I haven’t mentioned this to asshat. I don’t think it would even matter if I did. I suppose if he gave a shit, he could be contacting the counselor himself. Right?
Last night A went over to asshat’s girlfriend’s house for a small Christmas with them. I was annoyed when A brought home presents that they gave him – and D got nothing. Again. The thing is, the girlfriend has met D before. She knows he exists. She knows he and A live in the same house. But yet, it didn’t occur to her to get anything, even something small, for D? I’m not surprised, but I am irritated. Because you know, it’s totally healthy and normal for all adults to punish children by withholding gifts and love for non-compliance and disloyalty.
A will be going to his fathers this evening for a Christmas with that side of the family. I’m not going to hold my breath about A coming back with any gifts for D. Its sad though – D won’t say anything about it, and pretends he doesn’t notice , but I know that he does.
A asked if I could print off 2 sets of extra pictures for him to give to his grandmother and uncle (asshat’s mother and brother). These are the same pictures that the kids gave to my parents, one of A holding the cat in front of the Christmas tree and one of D sitting with the dog in front of the tree. That side of the family has had NO contact with D for YEARS now. None at all. They aren’t going to recognize him in a picture…other than A telling them who it is. I was uncomfortable with giving them pictures of D without talking to him first – but then I thought that maybe this is A’s attempt at reminding that side of the family that they are brothers. Maybe I wont worry about dragging D into this. “A is going to give a picture of you to your grandparents and uncle that haven’t had anything to do with you for 4 years or so as a Christmas present.” I feel like if he knows about it, and they STILL ignore him and don’t send any gifts, cards, emails or phone calls, that it will make him feel shitty all over again.
But, even A isn’t safe from his father’s bullshit. Over dinner last night A told me that his father said that the graduation rate for the college A wants to go to is only 20%. A and I talked about how that didn’t seem possible, considering the retention rate from Freshman to sophomore was 85%. I looked it up later myself and found out that their graduation rate is actually 6% higher than the ‘average’ college’s graduation rate, which is about 43%
I don’t have any idea why asshat would say anything except “How can I help you pay for this?” when it comes to A’s college choices…
Blah.
Anyway…Christmas was lovely for all of us, we had a nice dinner on Christmas eve and a family game of monopoly afterwards. Christmas day was fun and we had a big breakfast and then a fancy dinner in the evening. It was nice to have things feel so much easier than last year!
Happy holidays to you all!
Looking Forward 