Erin, that's completely infuriating.

Pix, I think "supercilious ass" pretty much sums it up. He is SUCH a Tino.

smonster, Frankie and I are having good times. Well, right now, he's having a nap, but he seems to be enjoying it quite a bit.

He does love a nap or ten. And then to sleep at night.

Also, my mother is looking at the pet rescue thingy she gets at the beach, and she's found about five dogs she want to adopt, and is trying to talk me into a Siamese.

Welcome back, Trudy!

I am glad there was some sort of compromise, Kristin. Sorry it was so stressful to you.

Erin, you are a rocking stepmom and I know that nothing that you vent here affects M, because you are awesome. His mom is really being awful and I am so sorry that you and D have to deal with it but you are being ADULTS and good parents.

Honestly, I say it a lot when this topic comes up but I cannot stress how amazing my parents were being divorced parents and remarrying and just being fucking adults.

Thanks for all the good words; I really need them tonight.

45 minutes late again. She started off my telling me I was was talking to her in a patronizing tone. Then she started yelling and was very antagonistic and hostile -- when I brought up therapy (since she seems to actually think M will turn out to be a weirdo, possibly suicidal teenager, no seriously) and I had been thinking ANYWAY that therapy was a Very Logical Step, she went ape-shit.

The problem is, apparently, so serious that only by D and I changing our ways and talking to M more will help, we all need to be on "the same page," which apparently means HER page, and since "problems I listed (ie, divorce, moving, etc, etc) stem back for 5 years, then I don't understand how DEEP-SEATED and URGENT this problem is.

Which, holy shit dumbass, if you belive your child's mental state is such that he may be suicidally depressed by high school, why the fuck are you flaring up about therapy? Got a sore tooth -- dentist. Flu? Doctor? Depression and repression? Therapist. WTFF is the big deal? he just needs someone impartial to talk to, he's not Jeffrey Dahmer.

She couldn't articulate the problem more, nor would she take responsibility. When we asked her what it would look like, to her, for us to be more involved parents, the solution was "call more."

She also rode my ass (or tried to) about how I've never once called M by myself. Riddle me this, rational people: if you were a new wife and stepmom, dealing with an often irrational woman, mother of your new stepson, who your husband has told you she has told him she has feelings of inadequacy or worry that M would like me better than he, would you not be mindful of possible boundary-pushing, and perhaps limit your phone calls in the first, let's say a YEAR, of marriage, to phone calls with your husband? Out of courtesy?

And when I told her my thinking on this, she flared up and was all "Now you're trying to blame me, Blah, Blah, when have I ever said, blaming me, blah, blah."

At this point I told her firmly but politely (but, I admit, with some heat) that if she continued yelling at me, then the conversation was over, and if she could simply listen to me, she would hear out how I was trying to be fucking polite and respectful of her position of mother. She wants me to call and email more? You got it, sister. Let's hope you can take it, because I am fucking awesome, and also? if M grows up to be weird and interested in "weird" stuff like Legos and Godzilla, then I don't give a flying fuck. You know who's going to make him feel shittiest about liking "weird" stuff? You. Not his classmates, although kids are brutal little beasts, but you.

Kids will be shitty to each other, no child gets a perfect life, and frankly, she creates drama to keep people's attention on her. And is irrational, melodramatic, and hyperbolic, and frankly, about 2 short steps from Munchausen's.

Jesus Christ. Thanks for listening to me yammer, because it was 2 hours of literal sound and fury signifying nothing. I am going to take a Xanax and go to bed; I am pissed and frustrated, because D and I are very logical solutions-based people, and she doesn't seem to want a solution, just fucking ER drama.

Get the fuck over yourself, and start dealing with things like a grown up. Your life choices lead you and your child and us here.

There's lots of other stuff that are nice and infuriating, but I have vented (most of) my spleen, which I needed.

STAB STAB STABBY

WTH Erin? She spent two hours yelling at you? Yipes. Is she a bit borderline?

Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound glib.

She's nuts and you're handling it beautifully.

Hah! Not glib, but accurate.

Yeah, I warned her off a couple of times, but she was yelling and agressive even when she wasn't "yelling."

And once, she wandered into the murky waters of "I don't know what kind of relationship you and d have if he's not sharing infomation..." and I was all "Whoa. Stop right there. We are talking about M and what we can do about that. Any conversations about D and I's relationship are not going to be happening."

Now, D hasn't been perfect, and neither have I, but neither, for sweet fuck's sake, has she, by ANY stretch. But everything seems to come down to something being D and I's fault.

You know, hot on the heels of our decision NOT to move to PA besides, oh, we don't WANT to, own a house, have a 20-yr old circle of best friends, ailing, aging family all in Midwest, silly non-reasons like that, is the simple fact that if I lived within driving distance of her and I had to deal with this F2F bullshittery, one of us would end up face down in the dirt.

And it wouldn't be me.

Oh, Xanax, there you are! I knew I stashed you in the medicine cabinet for a reason! Come to mama...

Rage, down Rage, down Down Down downdown

Erin, you handled that as well as you possibly could. And I am sneaky and petty enough that I think you upping your contact with M is a fantastic plan. Let me know if he starts showing an interest in gaming or goth stuff - I'd love to be his fairy gothmother via mail.

Oh, hee, that cheers me to no end!

And I AM trying to balance being petty and bitchy and doing right by M. So far, doing right is winning, but my violent fantasies are rather satisfying.