ace’s blog

Today started out decent enough. I stayed up late last night and woke up late this morning to a phone call from one of my favorite people in the world. Did some laundry, poked around the house a bit and basically had a lazy day. Then 6 o’clock hit and WHAT. THE. FUCK?!

Throughout the day, Meri threatened me twice with not being able to see the boys. The first time was that I wouldn’t be allowed to see them unless I had a legal document outlining a custody agreement. (related text messages below)

Meri: One more thing, you need a custody agreement for when you get up here so you need to get working on that. I am not allowing the boys to go with you unti 1:49 PM

Meri: l one is in effect i do not trust you not to take them away. You lie too much, as was just demonstrated with the phone 1:49 PM

Me: define custody agreement? 1:56 PM

Meri: Something legally binding that states what the custody of the boys is going to be, basically we need to begin our legal battle since we are not in agreeance 1:57 PM

Then I was told that I would not be able to speak the boys unless I provided her with my drivers license number. This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. She said that since I only respond to “when she threatens to not allow me to speak to the boys” (which she will forever deny that she ever said that), that I would not be allowed to speak to them until I gave her my drivers license number. Of course, that was via a phone call and I don’t have proof that she said it.

When she said that, I got off of the phone.

Then she began texting me about my drivers license number. She said she needed it in order to get car insurance since we were still legally married. I would rather not be on her policy since I don’t want to be on the hook if she didn’t pay her bill but mostly since she and I were not in the same household anymore. It didn’t make sense that I be on her new policy. She and I texted back and forth quite a bit about it for a while. She demanded and I continued to refuse.

Her mom called me and left me a voicemail. I called her back. The call started off nice enough (“hi, how are you?” blah blah) but then asked me for the “number” that Meri needed. I said “what number are you referring to?” and then it got nasty from there. She demanded that I give her the number no less than 3 times. I told her that Meri and I would handle it and she asked for it again, saying that Meri and I had been working on it “all day” and that we weren’t handling it. I heard Eli in the background and since that was the reason I called her back, to speak to Aaron and Eli, I asked to speak with him.

Lucy said that he was “down the street” and that she had to go. She also said that I was being very rude by not just giving her my driver’s license number.  I was very surprised at that comment and so I asked her “I’m being rude not giving you my driver’s license number?” and she said “yes, you are”. I told her that I wasn’t comfortable giving her that information and she made several comments to the effect of “what am I (or Meri) going to do with that number”. I responded to that by saying that I don’t know what they were going to do with the number and that I certainly wasn’t going to give it to them.

She also seemed to imply that she was doing me some sort of favor by taking the kids to the White Mountains for a few days. She said something like “I’m up here hiking up this hill with your kids” and then trailed off from there. If I wasn’t so pissed at that point, I would have laughed (it still struck me as funny). What a psychotic woman. That apple didn’t fall far from that tree, that’s for sure.

So all of that has me reconsidering moving up there.

Despite all of the challenges that Meri and I have faced and will continue to face with our impending divorce, I was certain that she and I could hammer out some sort of custody agreement. She goes back and forth, depending on her mood. Before they all left to move to Massachusetts, she was ok with us sharing the boys half of the time. Then she changed her mind and said that the kids should only stay with me once every other weekend and one day during the off-week. She expected me to be fine with that because “that’s all most dads get”. I’m not ok with that, nor would I ever be.

Despite her opinion swaying from one end of the spectrum to the other, I continued to think that we would be able to work out an agreement on our own. I don’t know why it took so long but I don’t think that any more.

I have an apartment in Franklin, Massachusetts. My move in date is September 1st. My plan was to pack up a trailer and leave Orlando on August 30th. I don’t think I can do that anymore. I really don’t feel that the boys are any better off up near Meri’s family than they are down here. I initially thought that since Meri had so much family up there and that they all seemed to be cordial to me that allowing the boys to move up there to be near all of them was in their best interests. I also thought that Meri would be happier up there since she’s always wanted to move back home. Since she will be alone with them 1/2 of the time, her being happy by being up in Mass would mean that the boys were happy when they were around her.

Long story short, I believe it is time for me to get a lawyer and bring the boys back home. I’m filing for my divorce soon and seeking full custody of the kids. I don’t want to keep the boys from their mother so I’m hopeful that we will be able to settle on custody half of the time.

I never was able to speak to the kids tonight either.

What a great way to end the weekend.

Then, after a 2 and a half hours of that crap, I get this text from Meri.

Meri: I took care of the insurance, talked to someone for 25 min and she helped me given my situation 8:32 PM

Hallelujah! She told me many, many times that she could not get car insurance because she didn’t have my drivers license number yet she did end up getting it – amazing!

The last few weeks have been a very difficult time for everybody in my family. Meri and I have decided not to get a divorce, at least not yet.

My mom lives in Jacksonville, which is about 2 hours away. We just recently star started speaking again, after a 3 year hiatus. So since I don’t have a support system down here in Orlando, Meri really wants to take the boys to Massachusetts. She is from there and has a lot of family around that would help with child care if one of us needed it.

My parents were divorced. my brother and I stayed with my mom and since my dad was in the Navy, he was all over the place. He was mostly in California and we were in Florida. I know all too well what it is like to grow up without a father around. I don’t want that for my boys. I don’t want to be several states away. I don’t want to be an occasional phone call and a random card in the mail. I don’t want to be that kind of dad.
I’ve discussed my situation with my IT Director at work and asked if I could work out of the Massachusetts branch. He told me that it was no problem at all and that I won’t really need to go into the branch at all and that I could just work from home. That was a major relief!! I didn’t really want to have to find another job up there.

We’ve decided that we aren’t going to get a divorce right away. We are going to get separated and see how that “works” for us, for approximately a year or so. If both of us feel that we want to remain together, then we’ll get a divorce. We are going to live in separate places. The boys will stay with both of us half of the time. We aren’t going to be so rigid about that schedule – we won’t force the kids to go to either place if they won’t want to.

We don’t want to jump right into getting divorced. Neither of us can say that we are 100% sure that we don’t want to be together.

This weekend, we’re going to list our house on the market as a short sale. We have a realtor friend that is going to discuss the ramifications of short selling our home, on our individual credit reports and on us financially.

I’m already feeling very sad that my family is going to be broken up. Hopefully, after our separation period, we’ll both decide that we really want to remain together and we can stay married.

Aaron (5yo) said I just beat you real bad, that means I spanked you (lol)

Posted via email from acedanger’s posterous

We celebrated Thanksgiving here in Orlando. It was just the four of us this year. After we ate Thanksgiving dinner (part 1 anyway), we put up our Christmas tree.

On Friday, November 20th, Aaron’s was in a Thanksgiving recital at his school. It was pretty short, but extremely cute! Aaron was very excited to see that Eli and I (daddy) came to see him sing with all of his classmates. Here are a couple of videos I shot of his performance.

Aaron, Eli and I have had our fair share of ear problems within the past 6 months or so. Aaron has had it the “easiest”, with the least amount of occurrences. I had quite a few rounds of problems. Eli had it the worst, as far as we could determine.

We finally went to see an ENT and it was decided that he should have tubes put in his ears. We had that procedure completed 2 days ago. The procedure lasted about 15-20min. The recovery time was minimal, maybe an hour. Eli was groggy most of the day, due to the anesthesia. That took about 10-12hrs to finally get out of his system. The tubes have already made a HUGE difference in our lives.

1. Eli has started playing on his own again whereas before, he would always cling to mommy. When we put him down, he quickly crawls to the playroom.
2. He hears better now too! He is starting to try to say new words (I got the first one – dada!)
3. The biggest improvement is that Eli is mostly sleeping through the night again! Over the past 2 nights since the procedure, he has woken up only once each night, at 4:40am Tues night/Wed morning and then at 3am Wed night/Thur morning. Over the past 6 months, he was waking up about 3-4 times a night, sometimes more!

I wish we would have had the procedure performed much earlier than we did! Eli was 10 months old when the tubes were put in, he is officially 11 months old today!

Over the last 5 or 6 months, the boys and I have had major ear issues! We spent approximately $700 on office visits and medicine during November 2007 alone, with health insurance!

I’m on either my fourth or fifth ear issue, either a lot of fluid on behind my ear drum or an infection. I’ve been to my ENT’s office so many times over the past few months that I might as well put in an application there! Aaron and Eli have been just as bad as me.

Eli is on his fourth double ear infection and Aaron has had three. I’m not sure if it’s some sort of environmental issue with either at our house or at my job or at their schools. I’m thinking that if it is environmental, then it has to be at our house somewhere.

It’s truly maddening. I haven’t suffered from ear-related issues since I was a little kid. I had to have tubes in my ears three or four times back then. Skip ahead 20+ years and here I am again.

I’m facing the possibility of having tubes put back in my ears. We aren’t sure what routes we should even consider with the boys. Eli is going to see his pediatrician today around 3pm and Aaron will have a similar visit (although we’re hopeful that the doc will just look him over today at Eli’s appointment).

The last few months have been horrendous though. I can’t wait until we can figure out what the issue is.