After DH rescued the girls from their drunken useless mother, DH and I had to figure out what to do with them. DH had made plans to work on Saturday while I ran errands. We decided it would be best to go about our scheduled plans since he had deadlines he needed to meet and I had already put off our errands for several weeks since we had the girls two weekends in a row before this weekend. We called a sitter, I made the girls breakfast and DH and I let them know that their sitter was coming to take care of them for a couple of hours. You would have thought we were abusing them in the worst way. SD9 kept going up to her "daddy" and asking why she couldn't go with him to the office. She was literally begging him to go with him. This was 9am and DH planned to come home by 1pm. Not to mention we weren't even suppose to have them this weekend. Thankfully he was firm with her (well firm by his standards is saying "Oh I'm sooo sorry sweetie, but I am going to a client and I have staff there. If I was just going to work by myself I would let you come but I can't today...") and she stayed with her sisters and the sitter.

When we returned, I could tell we made a serious error by not establishing a schedule for the weekend. DH had more work to do but planned on finishing at home. Meanwhile my sciatica was acting up and I was trying to rest from over straining myself. I asked him to please make sure they used indoor voices so I could take a nap. This shouldn't be too difficult since they have a game room on the second floor with two tvs, a Wii, a Kinect, a laptop and their iWhatevers. Of course, once I was in my room, all chaos breaks out and they are screaming, running up and down, yelling "daddydaddydaddydaddy" every 5 seconds, trying to get him to buy them stuff. I sent him a text to please quiet it down. I understand they are children, but ages 9 and 11 are well old enough to not yell inside the house. Trust me. It was ridiculous. They are quiet for about half a second before the raucous starts up again and I realize I will not be getting any rest.

I got up and started doing more things on my to do list, namely some projects that I volunteered to do for my baby shower. They are both all over me asking to help, so I let them. They continue to yell for either my or DH's attention. Eventually DH asks me what I want to do about dinner. Again, we didn't plan on feeding 5 people this weekend so we had no meal options in our fridge. Our options at this point were to order in or one of us go to the grocery store. However, before I can answer, both children start yelling out their requests for dinner "Oh get Dominoes and get the cheesy bread!!!" "No Daddy! Get Pizza Hut so I can have the wings!!!!" OMG. I have told DH so many times he needs to tell them to keep their traps shut when the adults are speaking but he continues to ask me questions right in front of them. This over-the-top overwhelming continued into the night until I finally took a drive by myself to clear my head.

When I came back, DH quieted them down and I went to bed. When he finished putting them to bed he came in and told me "Don't worry. We will never go for custody because you clearly don't like them and this isn't a good way for them to be raised either." At this point we were both fed up and had a heated discussion on how his children have no boundaries and how he refuses to parent them vs. how I don't know what it's like to be a divorced parent and how he feels bad for giving them such a shitty mother. His solution was for him and his kids to just go away for the weekend when he has them so I don't have to deal with him, which I pointed out is not parenting, its just rewarding them for their crazy behavior. We went to bed shortly after it was apparent we were not going to come to an agreement.

On Sunday, we both apologized and made a schedule (including meals) for the day and it went much better. We decided that at the very least we should try and make it to the Super Bowl party we had planned to go to all week long and that he would take his kids back to BM around 3pm vs. the usual time of 5pm. The kids complained that they were getting gypped out of 2 hours when the time came, but at this point we had them for 3 weekends in a row and are scheduled to have them again next weekend. Even DH had had his fill and promptly packed them up and took them back.

I imagine their behavior is the result of both being able to get away with murder with DH and the unstable environment their mother is providing. People always say "You knew what you were getting into." I would like to say to those people "No, actually I had no idea that BM would turn into a raging alcoholic, thereby damaging the mental health of her children." Or even "No, I did not know that DH would become an even worse guilty daddy should BM royally screw up." Or "No, I did not know that we would be pursuing a custody battle less than a year after saying I do." I think step one after getting these kids out of that house should be therapy for EVERYONE.