tim horton's with daughter

this is more of a diary entry than anything.

daughter and son left with their mother on vacation the last weekend of June. on the friday night before heading to the hot tub party i picked up daughter from the house and we went out for a little bit together.

daughter had called me. she was feeling a bit stressed. she was mad at her mom because her mom was doing her usual pre-holiday freak-out. stbx-Mrs_C always has a major spaz before any special occasion. i guess it's her way of dealing with the stress - unleash on the others around you.

daughter was mad because she had been relegated to doing all the housework - and even though daughter was being paid for it ($20), and had accepted the task, she said she was always ending up doing the housework now. she said part of the reason she accepted the money is because she knew she'd just end up doing it anyway.

apparently she was also irritated with boyfriend bob who had made a side deal with daughter on the housework as well - $20 more than Mom was paying. she didn't communicate the details very well but apparently boyfriend bob had promised extra cash if stuff got done on a timely basis to "Take the stress off your Mom."

[heh] I don't think boyfriend bob realises the road he is starting to walk down. he is already beginning to compensate for stbx-Mrs_C's instability.

we saw stbx-Mrs_C in her car as we drove to Tim Horton's and i confirmed with daughter that she had in fact said where she was going. you see, it looked to me like son was in the car with stbx-Mrs_C.

it turns out they had left daughter by herself and daughter was unaware they both had left (daughter just bellowed down the stairs at where she thought son was when she
left with me. i had daughter phone home every 10 minutes or so until we reached her mother.

her mom says she told daughter. daughter says she didn't hear.

either way, i'm a little irritated about it. i am a formal advisory kind of guy. i require an answer/acknowledgment from the other party when i make such pronouncements. even when (especially when) the kids were little, i would always do a formal hand-off of supervision to someone - at home and elsewhere. if i was heading to the bathroom, i would say (and require and answer) "I am going to the bathroom - you are on supervision at this time." and then do a briefing on location and activities if necessary. same with being at a relative's house - i would ask, and designate someone to supervise the kid if i had to leave the room.

i'm a little anal retentive that way - safety first.

daughter is still having issues with stbx-Mrs_C's mother telling her she's fat or needs to lose weight. daughter now avoids her grandma at all costs. it's kind of sad because when daughter was little they were quite close. or at least i thought they were close.

my mom told me that daughter told her that her other grandma was really swell about doing crafts, but that when she would make a mistake, or do something in a different way than other grandma wanted, daughter would get pounced on and given heck. other grandma would also always do a comparison of their respective work after they were done. daughter always came out on the short end. daughter was, i dunno, 5, 6, 7...

my mom was pretty sad that a grown-up would have to compete with a young child.

anyway, daughter complained about not being able to take her dog on the trip. i had to advise daughter that on that one i agreed with her mother. the dog should not go on vacation. daughter wasn't very happy but reluctantly agreed with the logic. i asked her if she actually agreed or was just giving in. she said she could see the reasons, but thought she should be allowed to take her dog anyway.

i laughed and we left it at that.