Mouse in the Library

K e-mailed Bear-Cub today. She wanted Bear-Cub to let her know when her school's Open House Day was, so that K could be there. No, none of the adults got any contact about this, why do you ask?

This prompted a discussion between catchild, louisadkins, warinbear, and myself. We already know ebonunicorn's opinion on this; we will still be checking with him after he gets home from work this evening.

We will be notifying K that we are severing contact with her. End of story, no more chances, this was the last line.

chaiya, dimers, we don't know when we're going to be sending her the letter on this, but I figured that you guys would want the heads up on the shitstorm that will more than likely ensue after this. If you want a warning closer to the date, we can let you know then as well.

Warin and I talked with Bear-Cub about this a little while ago. She told us that she had been expecting this for a while. Bear-Cub is not happy about the situation, but it really looks like she's been preparing herself for this for a while now. We told her that she should feel free to talk with us, ask us questions, or just scream on this whole issue any time she needs/wants to. She knows that this is not her fault.

We will be talking with Puppy about this after she gets back from her playdate with a friend. Telling her that Nana won't be allowed to have any contact with her at all anymore will probably be one of the hardest things that any of us have ever done. Bear-Cub is old enough that she saw what was happening, and she had time to prepare for what she knew was going to happen as a result of it. Puppy is still too young to catch what's been happening, so this will more than likely come mostly out of the blue for her. Which means that it will hit hard.

I feel tired and very old right about now. None of us wanted this to happen. None of us wanted to do this.

But at least I know some measure of peace right now. Phooka, who has been emulating her sisters and calling K "Nana"; Phooka, who loves so easily and trusts so very completely; Phooka, my youngest daughter, will never look at me and ask with hurting eyes, "Mama Tante Omi, why doesn't Nana love me?"

EDIT: Wed., Aug 3, 14:00 This being my journal, I forgot that not everyone who reads it knows what's been going on between us and K. It suddenly occured to me that it might appear as though we're cutting ties over a few instances, and without trying to work anything out. K has been pulling stuff like this and far, far worse for at least as long as Warin and Catchild have been married. There have been several attempts to tell her that we consider her behaviour unacceptable. It does not appear to have had any real impact on her.

Just to let everyone know that we've been dealing with this for a very long time now, and that we have tried the less drastic routes.

So, over the weekend, warinbear's mom (K) e-mails Bear-Cub. K tells Bear-Cub that the Huntsville Public Library will be having a birthday party for Harry Potter on Monday (today) and that she thought that Bear-Cub and her sister would be interested. Oh, and if no one else could drive, she could play driver for them.

We decided to go ahead and go. Let the kids spend some time with their Nana, let me spend some time with some very good friends. I practically grew up in that library. I was a volunteer and an employee there. I have friends there that remember me from when I was 7 years old. Therefore, I was perfectly fine with being around K there. My turf, y'see. Well, as fine with being around her as I was ever going to be. We drove ourselves, taking 2 cars so that louisadkins could go with me, catchild and all three girls.

Meeting old friends (library itself included in that category) was wonderful, the event was fun, all three girls had a blast. Phooka was in heaven in the toddler section. Catchild got to say hi to folks that she had met through me a few years ago, and I got to introduce Louis to old friends of mine.

Fast-forward about an hour and a half, to 5:30 in the evening. Catchild and I were needing food rather badly at that point. Louis goes in search of the two older girls. He found them with K. He told them that we needed to leave to get food, and that we needed to leave now. K was getting out pictures to show them at the same time that he was saying this. She said that she could just show them to the girls real quick first. Kids ignored Louis and dove into the pictures. Self-satisfied smile from K that the girls missed. Louis repeated himself on the needing to leave now angle four more times. He was ignored by both girls and by K. Fourth time, he informed the girls that if they did not move, they were going directly to bed upon our arrival at home.

Bear-Cub and Puppy moved. Bear-Cub was highly upset with having to go, and not happy about having a potential punishment tossed at her. Louis was (and still is) understandably upset about being ignored by both children and adult. Especially since Bear-Cub and K both know that Catchild is hypoglycemic. Bear-Cub also knows very well what happens when either of her mommies don't get food when they need to.

K was very obvious in comforting (and in my opinion, egging on) the upset Bear-Cub.

Okay. In review, that might seem like a small thing to be furious with a grandparent over. To review: K deliberately undermined Louis's authority with the girls. By example, she showed them that it was okay to ignore him. She then demonstrated to the girls that she felt that they shouldn't have gotten into any kind of trouble over it. She has done this to me, to ebonunicorn(Drkn), and to Catchild. I do not know if she has done it to Warin. I do know that both myself and Drkn usually catch most of it.

If past experience is any indication, the older girls will most likely ignore both myself and Louis for about a week or so.

I was furious and damn near hysterical with hurt and anger when we got home. I am now feeling very cold. K has finally crossed a line in my mind, and she has finally pushed to far.

My official parental vote on anything involving K is that the kids should not have contact with her. At all. Period. She refuses to stop undermining our parental authority with the girls. By doing so, she is teaching them by example that they do not have to listen to us or take us seriously. She is toxic, and it is my opinion that if we don't really trust her to be alone with the girls in the first place, why in the name of Hell are we letting her anywhere near our daughters at all? Yes, cutting her out of their lives now would hurt, but I think it's time we were actually honest with our children instead of hoping that K won't do something that'll screw them up for life.

Oh, wait. It's already to late on that front, isn't it? I say tell them the truth, hold them, hug them, remind them that we love them and that this is not their fault. Tell them all the things that we haven't been telling them about their Nana. And then get her the fuck out of their lives before she destroys them while we're waiting for her to do something 'obvious'.

My stance on this is no longer open to debate.



P.S. Catchild, I am not angry with you, this is not your fault, and I still love you very much, as I likely always will. While I am addressing several of your points, I am not upset with you. Okay?

catchild is finding her room today. She is also rearranging furniture. louisadkins is providing most of the assistance, and I've been popping in there periodically to help as well.

I think she's about ready to beat ebonunicorn over the head with his stuff, though. Frequent grumbles were heard from her that went something like this: "Why is he still keeping this? I thought we got rid of this two years ago! What the hell is that? Drkn, why is this still here? He hasn't touched this in over a year, why do we still have it?"

And so on and so forth. This includes the 19" moniter that he insists on keeping because he wants to someday get a second video card and have a computer with two moniters. He has been saying this for about a year now. The moniter has been perched on his dresser for most of that time. This does not touch all the stuff that, "might come in handy someday; don't throw that away, it's useful; we need to keep that, just in case," and so on.

He is a wonderful person, and I love him a great deal. He needs to learn the fine art of getting rid of things that need getting rid of. Ther first person that pipes up with "So he needs to get rid of me" will be severely growled at.

Ah, well. For a bad habit, it's okay. It's amusing more than anything else. Mostly because it's not my room that's being filled with stuff.

warinbear's grandfather sent him an e-mail. He wants to come and visit.

The man is a known child molester. catchild's journal holds more info on the subject.

Old New England family. He is the family patriarch. The whole family knows that he likes little girls, and most of them carefully pretend that the problem doesn't exist.

Old family, old blood, and he has the family estate. According to his eldest daughter (warinbear's mom) who also happens to be the executer of his estate, he has a right to have access to every member of his family. Quoting: " That was a long time ago. He knows what he did was inappropriate; he doesn't do it anymore. Besides, he only did it to his own daughters, and only to make them better wives. And he has never done it to anyone else." Direct quote, to the best of catchild memory, from four years ago.

If you do anything that upsets her, you get cut out of any will that she has any control over, and she does his books and estate for him. And not letting him have access to his kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids upsets her. And she still believes that he has a right to see his great-grandchildren, even after one of her sisters sent a letter to every family member that she had an address for. Said letter was a copy of one that she had sent her father, and listed what he had done to her and to her older daughter.

Our daughters, catchild and myself are, to the best of my knowledge, the only female family members that he has not molested in some way.

I despise family politics.

AOL hath been shot in the head. We are now (finally!) live on ISDN, and the phones are actually back online again after a weekend of not ringing through. I'm busy with a PS game called Suikoden, and . . . OK, enough of this.

( Depressive rambling behind the cut )

I need to calm down and back off.

I am seriously over-stressed right now, and I don't have a clue how to go about fixing it.

( Laundry List )

Lotsa emotional crap behind the cut - you have been warned.

( Read more... )

For those interested in The Ongoing Saga (and especially for those of us who are part of it), I submit the following points:

( Read more... )

I looked up at the calender today, and stopped to think. I moved in January of 2001. Ebon's been living with Warin and Catchild since 2000, and he's been in a relationship with Catchild for about six years now. I've been here for almost three years now.

We've lived together, bought furniture, vehicles, land, and houses, together, raised and are raising children together, gone to restraunts, movies, and grocery stores together, packed and unpacked together, built things together, gamed together, cleaned the house together, cooked together . . .

It feels like I've been here all my life, when it's really been not quite three years. It's a day late, but I'm thankful for this. I'm thankful for my family.

I'm still scared at times. I'm not terrified anymore, though. And I finally can see how strong we actually are as a family, and I can see how small the chances are that we're going to fall apart. The control freak is finally fading.

There's a line from a Sandman comic that springs to mind right about now: "Sometimes you fall. And yes, sometimes you die. But sometimes you fly."

I'm flying.

Louis took me to see the third Matrix movie this evening. I liked. I liked lots. I also don't feel the need to get into a vehicle again for about a day, on account of spending the morning helping get vehicles to and from Huntsville, which is where our mechanic is. It is also an hour and a half drive. If you happen to live in the Huntsville, AL area, this is Chek-Ups. On South Memorial Parkway. Yes, they are good (and honest) enough to warrant the drive. (end shameless plug for very nice people)

We got back and Catchild took a nap while the bears and I watched the baby. Louis and I waited 'til the girls got back from school, and then went out to the movie.

And the cool thing about all this is, we both knew that this wasn't a date, everyone else knew that it wasn't a date, and we had a damn good time as friends at a movie together without even a shred of worry about jealousy issues. This is a cool thing because it speaks volumes to me about well we as a family know each other and talk to each other. Two years ago, this was a major problem.

Time to get up and actually try some of the yoga exercises. My body is not happy about sitting mostly still for most of the day.