How much of a "non-parent" he is!
About 5 minutes after DH leaves the house, I hear the doorbell. As I go out to see who the heck is ringing my doorbell at this hour, I find that SD14 is still here (she should have been on the bus 20 minutes prior). I ask why the heck some is picking her up, and she tells me with a tone that it is because she has to be at the school by 7:30 am.
Now, my question is...why the heck is DH not taking her to school if she needs to be there before the bus can get her there? He left the house 5 minutes before she did! Whenever she needs to be there earlier, he always tries to use the excuse that she would be sitting around the school way before she needs to be there...but if he is leaving just minutes before? No, the real truth is that he doesn't want to get up 10 minutes earlier to allow himself the extra time to take her to school and still get to work on time! No, he wants me to go out in the mornings when I work from home and don't even need to be up until 8:00 am...but I'm not having that crap! He is getting up and leaving the house around that time anyway, he can give himself a few extra minutes.
And if she has to wait, big deal! There was a time I didn't work from home, and had to be at work by 8:00 am 20 miles away from the house and rush hour meant I had to leave at 6:30 am to get there on time...my kids had to sit at the doors of a closed school if they had to be there at a time before the bus could get them there!
And this is just the little stuff! A ride to school! Getting up 10 minutes earlier! He doesn't even do that!
I think DH pretty much know
I think DH pretty much know how I feel about this particular issue, which is why SD14 had someone picking her up this morning. I'm not sure if she even told DH that she needed to be to school earlier this morning than the bus could get her there, or if she just found a ride knowing I would not do it, and knowing that DH would pull his excuse. I didn't know anything about it until the doorbell rang this morning. It's just sad...she isn't willing to sit any extra time at the school, and he isn't willing to get up any earlier anyway!
Shoot, I remember when my son started football in middle school! 7th, 8th, and 9th grade, he had morning practice, and he had to be ON THE FIELD at 6 a.m. That meant he had to be dropped off early enough to get suited up and out there. At that time, I drove in to an office, and traffic here regularly is on the country's top 10 worst cities in America for rush hour traffic. So, to get to my office by 8:00 a.m., I had to leave at 6:30 a.m. This means I would get up at about 5:45 a.m. Now, when my son had morning practice, that meant I had to get up at at least 5:15 a.m. to throw some clothes on and get the car warmed up if it was cold out. Now, I could come home and get ready after that, or, instead, I decided to join a gym down by my office. Rush hour is funny...by heading toward my office at 5:45 a.m., I could get there in half the time, but that would mean I would be super early for work! So I would get up at 5:15 a.m., throw on some clothes, throw some clothes and makeup in a gym bag (or set that up the night before), go drop off my son, head to the gym, and shower and get ready there after my workout. Yeah, I could have whined and griped about having to get up earlier, but I decided to make the best of it, and I ended up in a much better situation because of it (lost 85 lbs)! BD22 was in band for 6 years, athletics for 1, and ag for 3. My son was in band for 2 years, this is his 6th season of football, he's done track all those years, and this is his 4th year in theater. My son didn't get his license until this time last year, and my daughter didn't get her license until after graduation (we just didn't have the money for the class, and this was when you could get your license at 18 without the course). So that was at least 8 years of me playing taxi? My kids had to sit outside and wait for me to drive back in from the city after work, and they had to sit outside of a closed school if they needed to be there early. I never expected DH to do any of it! If he called and said, "I'm already by the house, do you want me to," sure, I wasn't going to say no. But even though DH adopted my kids, I still saw it as my responsibility as their bio-parent! I was the one that brought them into this world! I don't get how some of these parents just don't get that! You decide to bring them into this world, you are responsible for them! Not your girlfriends, boyfriends, or any future spouse...especially if you are not going to do anything to be responsible yourself.
I remember all too well sitting outside of the school for a hour or more after basketball or track practice, because my school was out in the sticks, and my parents worked in the city...the school district lines had me going to this small town school just south of the city, because my parents wanted to live in the burbs. Sometimes it would be raining, sometimes it would be cold...and I wasn't allowed to get a ride from anyone my parents hadn't met!
My son came home early
My son came home early today...because he is a senior, he has off 7th period, and because of the game tomorrow, they do not have evening practice tonight. I asked him if there was any pep rally or anything that SD14 needed to be at early this morning. He said no, but that SD14 thinks my son is going to be her taxi cab! She expects my son to get up earlier so she can ride to school with him. Now, keep in mind, most nights, my son works past 11 p.m. and doesn't get into bed until midnight after he drives home, gets some food, etc. He also doesn't need to be to school until 8:00 a.m. So SD14 is expecting my son to get up earlier, and then sit around the school for 30 minutes she she can ride with him?
I think I need to have a talk with DH tonight. There are no more band competitions, and the band is not really practicing anything anymore. They have this cheesy routine for playoffs where they just march back and forth on the field playing the school song, because the band director wants to concentrate on concert stuff now. SD14 keeps saying that there is winter guard, but that still is no reason for her to have to be at school 45 minutes before the first bell rings...that is no reason for her to not be able to ride the bus to school and be fine with getting there at 7:45 a.m.! Something doesn't seem right with all of this....
UGH!!! So I call DH because
UGH!!! So I call DH because 30 minutes passed from the time SD14 was supposed to be home. SUPPOSEDLY, she is stuck outside up at the high school because she missed her bus because she left all of her crap in the band hall and it was locked, and the girl who was supposed to give her a ride home left without her. So she is sitting up there in the wet cold. Now, I need to be up at the school in 30 minutes to do project grad stuff. I have to be there a full hour, and then I was going to go to the store because with my son's out of town game tomorrow, I won't have another opportunity to do so, and we have a potluck at church on Sunday that I'm supposed to bring something for. Soooo....instead of him swinging by the school to pick up SD14, DH is coming straight home and telling SD14 to find me while I'm there, and I'm stuck taking her to the store with me...so this is going to be whine, whine, whine...I'm tired and cold and want to go home, yadda, yadda.
Oh, and he did know about the being at school early thing, and told her to find a ride instead of taking her himself. DH also informs me that SD14 needs dance shoes and yoga pants for color guard. Now, I wouldn't have a problem with this except that DH just bought SD14 BRAND NEW dance shoes right before she moved in with us, and hasn't danced since! So, she should have a brand new pair of shoes to wear because her feet haven't changed sizes. She is complaining that one shoe is a half size different than the other shoe...that the short time she had them at her old school, they must have gotten mixed up with someone else's, etc. So, she tells DH last night that she needs these things by today! Really? Oh, today she just wore the "mis-matched" pair. And supposedly, she needs to be up at school early every day for this winter color guard thing...that they have to practice two hours every morning plus the Tuesday and Thursday evenings that they have already been practicing. But, like everything else, this wasn't told to anyone until last night.
(No subject)
Yes, he is not being a parent
Well, part of it IS SD14's
Well, part of it IS SD14's fault....lack of communication! She doesn't tell DH ANYTHING until last minute! She spent earlier in the year letting DH blame the band director for not communicating anything with students earlier in the process of things, until the same thing started happening with SD14's theater stuff. Now, with my son being in theater every year of high school (he is as serious about acting as he is football), I am VERY familiar with the way the teacher does things, and she does NOT have a communication problem! So, the truth is coming out that SD14 is not paying attention and not passing along information.
I ended up being the one to have to take her to get her shoes and pants. Since I was out at the store anyway, I decided it would be best if I do it, because DH doesn't pay attention to price, and SD14 would end up talking him into some $50 UnderArmor or Nike pants instead of the $15 BCGs simply because she "preferred how they look". Those shoes of hers were $30...yeah, not all too bad, but when you consider what I said before...she just got a new pair that long ago and they should have been hardly worn! Girl goes through dance shoes faster than I go through workout shoes, and I beat my workout shoes to hell!
So, it was rainy, and VERY cold Friday night, and the whole while, DH got to sit in the comfort of our warm home while I ran around getting SD14 what she needs. This was after she she had to sit with me for an hour in a cold concession stand as we called and waited for Seniors to come pick up their fundraiser orders (which is why I was originally going up to the school). Oh, and SD14 didn't have a coat...she borrowed one from one of her friends. She had said about a month ago that she did have a coat at BM's, but when I asked her about it Friday, she said she couldn't find it, so another thing... Fortunately there, I had a coat in my closet I could let her have that was too big for me, which is both waterproof and windproof. It is a very nice coat, and actually fits her perfectly...not some crazy color, but black. Today is 32 degrees and on and off sleet outside. You think she wore it? No! She will probably "lose" the coat because she really wants something brand new, and doesn't really provide her the weather protection this thing does. She will want something that is cute and thin and lets the cold wind right through, because that is always the case.
Just like the t-shirt paints I gave her last night! She tried to get me to buy some on Friday night for a school project she has. Now, I'm very familiar with this project, because my son had the same teacher and did the exact same project. I told her there was no need to buy anything, that we still had all the supplies at the house from when my son did his project. SD14 goes behind me last night, and tells DH that they need to go to the store and get t-shirt paints for her school project. I nearly blow! I go to the crafts cabinet, and pull out the paints from my son's projects...all were still in great condition, not dried up or anything. I handed these to DH and said, "Here, I told her we already had these and there was no reason to spend money!" She looked a little disappointed that she wasn't getting brand new stuff to do her projects...I'm pretty sure part of it was the fact that she new she couldn't talk DH into other stuff while they were at the store together, like she already did with me the other night and I told her no!
So yesterday, SD14 texts me
So yesterday, SD14 texts me while I am out getting my Christmas shopping done (as I prefer to avoid crowds) asking me when I'm getting home. I call her to find out what is going on. Turns out, she left her key at home, and was now sitting on the porch in the wet and cold! I told her that I was down in the city, and I couldn't just run to her rescue. I also mentioned that we SPECIFICALLY discussed this just yesterday...that I was not going to be home like I usually am, because I had the day off and planned on going into the city to shop, so she had better make sure that she had her key when she left the house this morning! I called my son, who was luckily at his friend's house just down the road and was able to go run to let her in. Apparently, after talking to DH, SD14 called him first, and he told her to call me since I was ONLY shopping and could probably run home (I was 30 miles away from the house).
I so want to slap DH right
I so want to slap DH right now!!!
So, DH got off work early because he had to work this weekend. When SD14 walks in the door, he asks her what she is doing. She says that she is about to do some homework, that she has some research to do. After some discussion, DH mentions to SD14 that he saved something on the DVR for her, and she is instantly, "Let's watch it!" I point out that she said she had homework to do, and that if she is allowed to watch TV before doing the homework, then when 10 p.m. comes around, SD14 will be using the excuse that she isn't done with her homework and that is why she can't go to bed yet. SD14 immediately starts to say that it isn't REALLY homework, that it is just some research that is needed for a project that is due in 3 weeks, and that the project is so small, and they have plenty of time to do the research in class, etc. So what does DH do? Sits down next to her on the couch and watches the program on the DVR!!!! Does he really believe that the homework isn't homework anymore? At which point was she lying...when she said she had homework in the first place, or that it isn't really homework, because she is lying in there somewhere!
And I made a comment to DH that he should have called me on the way home, that I would have had him pick me up some Chinese food for dinner. SD14 starts going on that we should go out and get Chinese all excited. I point out that she isn't getting Chinese, and that instead, we will just eat what is in the fridge. She is like, "But why?" I point out that every time we get Chinese, she eats like 5 bites of her chicken fried rice (which is $8 BTW), says she is full, puts the rest in the fridge, and it just ends up getting thrown away because she never goes back to eat it, even when told to (she would rather not eat, than eat her left overs, if that is the ONLY choice). SD14 is then like "But I'm REALLY in the mood for Chinese! It is has been months! I promise I'll finish it all, even if that is all I eat the rest of the week!" I told SD14 that this is what she ALWAYS says, and she never eats more than 5 bites, so no...I'm not wasting money, we can eat leftovers! She keeps arguing for like another 5 minutes, until I tell her again super firmly that there will NOT be any Chinese food tonight! SD14 then tries to get DH to give in, but at me giving him the look, he just looks at her and says, "You never finish it." and walks away (to the TV room, where he turns on the TV and pulls up the program on the DVR that SD14 shouldn't be watching because she said herself she had homework, but, wait, it isn't really home work)!
I really want to smack him!
DH left a bit afterwards to his friend's house. SD14 said she was going to eat a sandwich, which she did, and immediately headed to the bathroom for 10 minutes after she finished. But, she wanted me to waste money on Chinese food? If all she is going to do is barf it up, she can eat boring stuff all day! I'm not paying good money for it to be barfed up!