Memorial Day Weekend 2011

What you see above is pretty much how I ended a pretty fucking great weekend.  Was it retarded like this or this from last year?  Well, no.  Was it exactly how I wanted to spend the weekend?  Pretty much.  Let's rewind, shall we?

Friday night I had tickets to a local band's cd release party.  I had paid for two VIP tickets which really just meant I got a whole bunch of free stuff, but splurged anyway because I never get to do anything fun anymore.  Brandon picked me up around 8 and we headed up to Job 2 to have a couple of drinks and meet up with another couple who were heading to the concert too.  By 9:30 we were on our way to the venue.  I'd never been to the place before, but had heard great reviews of the place, so I was kind of excited to go somewhere new. 

We headed down to the Bluestone and when we pulled in, I was amazed.  I mean, what do you say about a huge old church being turned into a concert venue?  It was a huge old brick building and once you got inside, there were several bars, a balcony for viewing as well as standing room only space in front of the stage.  Downstairs they had a really sweet bar area for the after party.  As usual, the music was good and hanging out with a different crowd was good for me.

My favorite local band, Noise Auction, starting out the night

 Kelly getting frisky with the Jager bottle which we ultimately stole...

 Brandon looking hot and me looking retarded....

 The view from the balcony

My friend Chris and I.  He's also known as the guy that smacked my ass so hard one time I actually woke up with a hand print.....

After all the music was said and done, I collected all of our swag, not bothering to stay for the after party because I might have been a little more than buzzed and Brandon doesn't navigate downtown very well.  We met up with the others at Job 2 for nightcaps.  Needless  to say, a 2 foot tall blow up bottle makes for some fun times in the bar...  Seeing as it was dead in there, we were punting it and doing all sorts of other retarded shit....

I have no idea what time we called it a night, but I was drunk for sure....  

Saturday morning we get to sleep in. Weird.....  Rolled out of bed around 11 or so and took the kids to breakfast seeing as there's no food in my house because I never have any time to do the grocery shopping.  Seriously, I need a housekeeper....  After we got back, they commenced slave labor and I laid around and eventually went into work around 3.

Saturday night Brandon, the boys and I went to see the Hangover 2.  What to say about it.....  Well, I fell asleep about halfway through it, so I guess that would tell you my opinion of it.  With what I saw of it, I wasn't impressed.  I mean, it was funny and all, but I just don't get all the hype.  Neither of the big kids liked it except for them getting to see some boobs, so I was bummed I tried to spend some time with the big kids and it was a bust.  Hey, I tried...  They did get two full meals out of the deal Saturday since they got breakfast out, then I let them eat whatever they wanted at the movie theater that night.  I don't mean popcorn and candy, this theater serves full meals and has a full bar...

Sunday I knew I had to get some things around the house accomplished.  Since I'm never home, things have just gotten pushed to the side and not dealt with.  It's kind of getting out of hand.  What I didn't figure on was sleeping reasonably late and not getting started on those things until much later than I anticipated.  Luckily Brandon was around and willing to help out.  

My lawnmower hasn't worked for whatever reason this season.  Being as we've had record rainfall here over the last couple of months, much like rest of the country, my grass was like a foot tall, well, it was where the grass actually grows anyway.....  I mowed it once like three weeks ago with a neighbor's mower and that's been it.  I just don't have time for it, unless people wanna hear it at 3am...    I also procrastinate as long as humanly possible on mowing the lawn because I'm severely allergic to grass.  If I could kill all of it and put sand down, I would because let me tell ya, after 20 minutes of mowing (that's all the bigger my yard is...)  having a purple face and not being able to breathe is not fun.  Luckily when my new mower got dropped off Sunday, Brandon mowed it for the small price of dinner.  Awesome.  Stuff got done, we cooked out, I dropped the big kids off at mom's house and headed into work.

Not a whole lot to report from the work front on Sunday night.  That was the cap on my 5 shifts there this week, so I really wasn't feeling it, but faked it because, well, that's what ya do...  Got home around 3am and immediately fell asleep.

Yesterday morning, I woke up around 10:45, I rolled over and Brandon was watching tv.  He looked and me and said "I need food."  Umm ok then, let's go eat.  We leave the house and I realize it's going to be another beautiful day.  I look at him and say "Let's just say fuck it and go to Zoombezi Bay for the day, just me and you."  I've worked hard, maybe too hard lately, it's finally winning over on me and I realized I'm just not happy.  Money doesn't equal happiness, it never has for me, and although I'm not doing it to get rich, I'm doing it to keep my head above water, I can't keep doing these 80 hour work weeks.  No matter how good the money, I just can't do it.  I'm exhausted and mean ALL the time.  I thought booking my vacation would help me focus on just getting through all this, but to be honest, it's done very little for me.  I'm still about $1500 away from just getting back to even, but it's money that it seems no matter how long or hard I work I just can't get.  Something is always popping up to keep me from getting there.  Oh well....  Back to yesterday...

I didn't think Brandon would actually want to go to Zoombezi.  Normally he would have some lame excuse that he's got stuff to do or he's on call with picking up his kids, but his answer was a simple "Ok, let's do it, but can we eat first?"  Umm sure, lol.  We ate breakfast, got tickets, I printed my previously purchased season pass (the boys have them and it just economically made sense for me to get one since it pays for itself in two trips) and we were out the door.  

We entered the park and the big thermometer said 88 degrees at 12:30.  Awesome.  I love hot weather and all this rain and dreariness that we've had for months now certainly hasn't helped my mood.  We spent the day lounging in the adult lazy river and hanging out in the lounge chairs.  Sure the place was packed and there were kids running around screaming pretty much everywhere, but they weren't MY kids, so they were easily blocked out.  By 4 I was ready to call it a day.  I had to be at work at 6 and still needed to eat, so we gathered our stuff and headed back to the house where the big kids had returned and were none too impressed we went without them.  

The perfect day for me......

I went into work with a good attitude last night.  The owner told me to hold off closing the place until at least 1 because he expected to be dead, but I really was steady all night.  By 2am, I had pretty much cleared everyone out and Brandon and I headed home.

That brings us to this morning I guess.  Up and ready to go at 6:30, I'm struggling to keep myself awake.  Right now is a rough point in the morning for me.  Not quite enough caffeine in me yet and really no food, so let's just see if I can' make it through till I can map on my lunch break.

On tap this week?  Job 1 Tuesday-Thursday, Job 2 Monday/Wednesday, kids baseball games Tues/Wed/Thurs/Sat, picking up E tonight and having him until next Monday, and THREE consecutive days off from both jobs....  Apparently hell has frozen over with that last one....  Though I have much to do on Friday with the hood garage sale and Gavin's 8th grade graduation, it's still a day off.  I'm sitting here trying to think of what else is going on this weekend, but I'm drawing a blank...  Oh well, let's just get through the next few days.....

Randomness.. 5/26/11

Doesn't this picture scream "I AM THE FACE OF ALL THAT IS EVIL!!!!"?  Lol... We had to go to the doctor and get E's cast checked again yesterday.  What can I say about this kid other than he's a trooper.  That damn broken arm certainly isn't holding him back.  It seems to be healing well, but they're concerned that since he's so rambunctious that he'll re-break it if they take the cast off too soon.  I don't blame them.  The kid is a walking  running disaster.  He doesn't know how to just walk.  It's running full tilt all the time, which of course leads to many, many falls because he's uncoordinated like his mom.  Ugh.  Now that he's unevenly weighted he falls even more often.  Three more weeks in the cast then they're going to take it off, x-ray it yet again and make sure it's COMPLETELY healed.  If not, it goes back into a cast.  I'm ok with that even though it's gonna put a major damper on his summer at the local water park.  He likes to play with my phone and take pictures of himself since the iPhone 4 has the dual cameras and he can look at himself and snap the pic.  This was taken as I was trying to wrestle the phone away from him.
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We also had court yesterday.  Like I told you before, I wasn't looking forward to it, even though Jordan and I have been communicating fairly well.  Apparently he's still hell bent on getting full custody of E, so negotiations are stalled on that front.  He did smart off to E's lawyer and she was pissed, so that makes me look all the better.  Unfortunately when he did that, she decided to sentence us to counseling as a punishment.  Personally, I think he needs anger management counseling and I need to go about doing what I'm doing.  Like I said, this was the one thing I wanted to avoid both because of time and money concerns and now because of him we have to do it.  Ugh.  The good news is, HE has to pay for it.  The attorneys are also considering filing a reallocation of costs for E's attorney because she's going to have to dig more deeply into the case because he's being so adamant that I provide an unstable home life.  I think they're considering a 75/25 arrangement, which would be great for me, considering I'm still paying my own lawyer for his services.  We'll see what happens with that when we go back next month.  Right now I'm just angry with the whole thing and trying to be the bigger person in all of this, which we all know is hard for me, seeing as I could cut him to pieces with just words on any given day...
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Plans for the weekend?  Umm that would be a no.  There will be no cookouts or any of that fun stuff for me.  I doubt we'll get any nice weather to permit those kinds of activities anyway, although I am craving a nice spicy Italian sausage with grilled peppers and onions...  Oh well.  What am I doing?  Yeah, you guessed it, working.  I ran into some car trouble this week and as much as I would have liked to say fuck it and just get a new one, I had to break down and pay for the repairs.  A starter and new brake pads/rotors/something else up there in the front that was holding my wheel on by a thread and $450 later, it's fixed.  Lucky for me I have mechanic friends that will do that shit cheap.  Now all I have to worry about is the fact that it's randomly overheating and I REEEEEEALLY need 4 new tires.  The whole tire thing is retarded though.  Stupid low profile tires cost a fucking fortune and you can't even get used ones for less than like $80.  Oh well.  I'll just keep plugging away at work and see what I can do.  I did get to see this when they were trying to get my car out of the parking lot it died in:

It was a complete double rainbow.  I wish I could have gotten back far enough to get it all in the picture, but it was super close!  One of the coolest things that I've seen in awhile.  The three guys that were looking at my car stopped what they were doing to check it out for a minute.  On a kind of sad note, when I was checking my Facebook updates, I saw that one of my friends status said, "RIP Noah, mommy loves you, even if you were only with us for a few hours.  There was a rainbow that day and exactly 10 years later on your birthday you've given me a double rainbow to show you're looking down on us."  Let's be real honest, I teared up for a minute.  Then I proceeded to send her the pictures I took of the rainbow from my phone.  She was more than grateful.
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The love life?  I don't know anymore.  I've been hanging out with Brandon pretty much every day and we all know (and Eminem said) with time spent, emotions grow.  The relationship is certainly lacking something though.  Probably the fact that I feel like his dirty little secret isn't helping things.  Ugh.  I realize that he's trying to keep things peaceful while dealing with his divorce, but damn, they've been separated for over a year and she's clearly moved on (she has had a boyfriend for quite some time).  Yet when pretty much anyone calls and asks where he's at, it's either out & about or at the apartment.  It kind of hurts my feelings.  We do go out and there is always a chance that we'll run into someone, and have several times, but it's just all kind of weird.  Both of our kids had baseball at the same place on Tuesday night.  The fields were diagonal with a building separating them.  I didn't see him get to the field, but when I was taking my niece to the bathroom, I saw him and he walked over to talk to me for a minute.  His game was done before ours, so he lingered a bit, but not noticeably until the wife, his mom and the kid were gone.  Whatever.  I guess we'll just keep on more of the same and see what happens...  I don't know though.  I feel like all this time I spend with the Mr. Wrongs, I'm potentially shutting out the Mr. Right.  There's not really any way to have the best of both worlds I suppose.
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In other news... 40 days till vacation!  Words can't express how much I need to get the hell out of here.  It's another 80 hour week without a day off until next Friday (if Job 2 doesn't call).  I took the day off from Job 1 because it's the last day of school and we always have a party and garage sale, plus Gavin has his 8th grade "clap out" (which totally sounds like an STD).  Damn, in just a little over a week, I'll be the mother of two high school kids.  Oh dear lord where is the time going???

Have a good one peeps :)

I Believe A Couple of People Actually Said WTF?

.....when they saw this Friday night

Do we all know what this is?  Yeah, it's me with my two ex-best friends.....  Getting retardedly drunk.  How did we get back to this point from this and the whole "Mean Girls" work clique? 

Let me start by saying, shit has been bad at work.  I've been keeping my head down, doing what's asked and watching the shit brew.  People were becoming discontent.  Grumbling under their breath and just generally being weird.  Most days I'm too tired to deal with the drama, so I just sit in my cubicle and do my job... Well, act like I'm doing it anyway.  Some days I just aimlessly surf the internet ALL DAY LONG.  That's the beauty of being in charge of everything computer related and a salary employee required to be here...

Two weeks ago a comment was made about a couple of our support staff clocking each other out in order to take longer lunches.  Personally, I sit clear at the back of the building, so I have no idea when anyone comes or goes, nor do I care for the most part.  BUT these two people happen to be two of the three people that were making my life a living hell not all that long ago, so I took special interest.  I also made mental note that the third of that group, Tara, had become suspiciously absent in their wanderings around the building and had been attempting to talk to me more.  I just chalked it up to the fact that at some point we'd start speaking again.  I mean, hello?  We've been best friends forever....

I sat back and quietly gathered all the evidence I needed to make the bust on these two, because technically it is my job to pay attention to things going on with the time clock when an issue arises.  It wasn't one day before I discovered the plot.  Every single day one of them was leaving at like 10:50 and not clocking out.  At 11:30, when the other one went to lunch, she'd clock both of them out and the first one wouldn't arrive back until around 12:35.  Sneaky, but our office really isn't that big.  People were starting to notice, even though she'd leave her purse on her table like she was just away from her desk. 

Last week Tara looked at me as I was walking through the lunchroom while she was eating her lunch alone and said "If you know something bad is going on and you don't say something about it, does that make you just as guilty?"  "Yeah dude, it really does, but I know what you're saying and it'll be dealt with soon enough" I told her and left it at that.  I forwarded all the snapshots of the information to the Director of Operations that afternoon.  By the next morning the Director, President of the company and their manager were watching them.  They were worried because we didn't have concrete proof that the one was clocking the other out.  It could have been anyone in the company, but we knew it was her.

Then it happened.  Thursday girl number two went up to the receptionist (who knew what was going on because she sees them leave every day)  and said "I got (girl #1)'s employee number mixed up with yours when I was clocking her out, so your time clock is messed up."  Bingo.  The receptionist told the manager and the manager documented it and fixed her time in the system.

Friday morning I was too tired to come into work on time.  The guy I'm seeing, Brandon, his best friend was struck dead by a heart attack last week.  A healthy, 47 year old who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't do drugs, was out mowing the lawn, came inside and dropped dead and his 10 year old found him sort of situation.  The funeral was Friday.  I didn't go because Brandon's wife was going (they're separated if you haven't read about that), but I felt like I should hang out with him until it was time to go to the funeral, so we actually got to sleep in a bit.  It was nice considering we were out late Thursday night and we NEVER get to sleep in.

I wake up around 10 and look at my email.  Justice has been served.  Both of them were fired Friday morning.  I call in and deactivate their email accounts and get the gossip about how they both left yelling and screaming and having a fit.  Awesome.  Too bad I missed it, because you know what ladies?  Karma is a bitch.  You made my life miserable for months over things that were nobody's business but my own.  I hope that they both had good stories to tell their husbands when they got home, because truth is, they were both cheating, that's why they were taking the long lunches.  Ugh.  To be a fly on the wall for that conversation....

Friday night I had no plans.  My car was broken down, so I knew I had to stay close or cab it somewhere because Brandon had his kids.  Part of me wanted to crash and burn from the ridiculous week I'd just had.  I decided against staying home when E beat Brandon in the head with his cast and I sent him to bed because he did it on purpose.  Ugh.  I walked my ass up to Job 2 and sat down for a drink.  There were plenty of people I knew there and I had booked the band, so if I chose the company, it was there.  I just wanted to drink alone and people watch.

About an hour after I got there Tara texted me and it said "Wild freaking day you missed.  I need to drink... A lot, are you at VIP?"  I replied back that I was and she said "Great, be there in a bit."  Once she showed up and filled me in, it was all down hill from there.  The whole neighborhood had packed the place for the band and shots were flowing.  At some point Nicole shows up and isn't in the best of moods, but she's ok.  Then shit like this started happening....

Why yes, we're molesting a taxi... What the fuck?  And who had my phone to take these pictures??

No clue what's going on in this one or who this dude is.

Yeah, train de-railed....  Fun times.  Tara's dude, Mike, was actually civil and attempting to have some fun.  I don't know if he's been working on not being such an asshole or what, but he did end up dropping me off at the house when it was decided that we needed to get outta there before shit really got stupid.  

I woke up the next morning to Gavin throwing my soaking wet phone at me.  He told me "Good thing you got that expensive waterproof case, because it rained last night."  Yes Gavin, good thing......  I rolled back over and laid around until work at 7 since I still didn't have a car.....

It's Booked!

You know, there's a point where you just say "Fuck it, I'm out!" and I've reached that point.  This morning I booked my trip to Vegas.  I'm leaving earlier in the week and coming home later than I really wanted to, but to use my free flight, that's the way it's gotta be I guess.  It's all good.  For a whopping total of $27.50 I'll be in Vegas from 7/5-7/11.  Hell, it only cost that much because I splurged on the automatic early check-in from Southwest for $20 so that I don't have to worry about all that nonsense.  Both Planet Hollywood and Mandalay Bay have stepped up to offer me my entire trip hotel stay free of charge, so I can cross two hotels that I've never stayed in off my list, but I may or may not move some things around depending on what other offers I receive before I go.

It's a good feeling on a Monday afternoon knowing that I have a vacation booked.  My last trip out there wasn't all that great, other than getting to meet Hurricane Mikey and Linda Lou, which was awesome, but not my typical trip being as I was with someone under 21.  This trip is about ME, ME, ME.  The lovely Very Josie may be joining me for part of the trip for a bit of girly buffoonery and I'm hoping I get to meet up with my Vegas mommy, Linda Lou, but other than that, I'm ready for whatever and looking forward to not being on anyone else time schedule.  If anyone who reads this is going to be out there during that time, shoot me an email and maybe we can meet up for drinks or something.  Meeting new people is always pretty cool....  Well, unless you're one of those creepy stalker types of course.... 

In other news.....  Well, let's be real honest.... I got nothing.  I worked 5 days at Job 1 and 6 at Job 2 last week, none of which were great money nights.  I mean, I'm sure I made more at that job than Job 1, but still...  Ugh.  All I need to do is make it till Sunday and I'll have a full day off WOOOOO HOOOO, something like that.  I've stopped cashing in my quarters and started stashing them away for my trip, so that will be a nice little bonus to cash in before I go.  That's about it right now from Tara-land, I do have a couple of things I want to talk about this week, but they'll have to wait, it's lunchtime.

Have a great one peeps :)

This Happened On Your Watch, Not Mine....

I'm sitting with Sandi at lunch yesterday and a call pops up on my phone.  I immediately sigh because it comes up "Bethany The Bitch".  Fuck.  What the hell does she want?  I pickup the phone and say hello.  I get a "TARA, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.  I'VE NEVER HAD ANYTHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN BEFORE AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO."  I tell her to calm down and tell me what happened.  She freaks out "EVAN WAS RUNNING AND HE TRIPPED AND FELL AND I THINK HIS ARM IS BROKEN.  HE'S USING HIS FACE TO EAT HIS LUNCH RATHER THAN PICK UP THE FOOD."  Great.  If I haven't mentioned before, Bethany is Jordan's girlfriend.... Fiance, whatever..... 

This is not what I had planned for the day...  I had a strict schedule of things that I had to get done before I went to work at 7 and this was a kink in the plan.  After MUCH back and forth over what to do because Jordan works an hour away and Bethany can't take E to the doctor because she's not his parent, Jordan decides he's coming home from work early and I'll meet them at urgent care.

Once Jordan gets to his house he texts me and it says "His arm isn't broken.  He's fine."  Umm ok.  I text him back and insist that he still goes to urgent care seeing as Bethany freaked the fuck out on me.  She may be a dumb bitch, but she is a mom.  He agrees if it'll make me feel better and 40 minutes later we're at urgent care (because you know, when you live cleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeear on the other side of town, it takes time to get anywhere.....).

The doctor doesn't seem to think it's broken either.  Something about a tendon in little kids that can pop out of place causing them to not use the arm until it pops back in, but just to be sure, they want to get an x-ray.  Jordan doesn't volunteer to take the kid down to get it, so I take him by myself.  All is fine for the first x-ray.  His arm is down flat on the table.  No big deal.  For the second one the arm is bent back and slightly twisted.  The kid flips the fuck out.  Ok assholes, who says it's not broken now??  We manage to get through it, E gets stickers and is happy once more.  We get back to the room and I look at them and say "It's broken, I know it is."  They both just look at me.  Bethany looks like she's going to cry.  Not 5 minutes later the doctor is back in the room.

He said "Well, I was really hoping it was just that tendon.  Unfortunately, it's broken.... All the way through.  At least it's a clean break though.  It could be a lot worse.  He must have fallen hard, we don't see something like this very often."  Great.  Of course my kids have to be the exception to the norm all the time.  Ugh.  We get him casted up and he's relatively quiet though the whole thing.  His big brown eyes were large with fear as to what they were going to do to him.  Eventually they're done and he finally cries for a minute.  They give him a Popsicle and he quiets down.  I look at Jordan and say "This is why we always get hurt kids checked out" and we make our way out to the car to head home.

I feel bad because as soon as we get home I have to get ready for work.  The poor little guy had a hard time eating.  He was trying to use a fork with his left hand when he's really not all that good with one in his right hand.  Ugh.  I tell him he can eat with his fingers and he seems a little happier.

Poor kid.  We only had our first kid broken bone in the house last year and it was when Gavin was playing around and hit that kid in the head.  Total accident on that one.  Not that this wasn't an accident.  It was.  Bethany texted me right after I got home and it said "I'm soooo sorry, I feel absolutely awful."  I text her back "Accidents happen.  He'll heal quickly."  She feels bad, but I know Jordan feels worse.  I want to laugh in his face and say SEE MOTHERFUCKER, THIS SHIT HAPPENED ON YOUR WATCH, NOT MINE!!!  But I didn't.  Because I'm the adult in this situation....  To his face anyway....

Poor Little E.  He'll be all better in  about 6 weeks, providing we can keep him down and healing.  Ugh, that should be hard to do because this kid never stops moving.  We'll see how all that goes......

14 Hour "Naps"

So, yesterday I only had three hours of sleep before I had to get up and be at Job 1.  Ugh.  Needless to say, by the time I got home yesterday afternoon I was living dead girl.  I walked in the house had some meaningless conversation with children who don't really care if I'm there or not and laid down for a nap.  My explicit instructions were to wake me up at 7 because I had things to do and I really wanted to just get out and take a run last night (yeah, don't laugh, all the sudden I'm missing the gym for some reason). 

When do I wake up?  6am this morning....  What.The.Fuck?  Don't get me wrong, I feel fucking great today, but damn it, I had shit to do last night!  Oh well, I suppose everything that I was supposed to do can wait until tomorrow.  I'm taking a half day off tomorrow to get kids sport physicals and put back on their Adderall.....  Yeah, they need it.  Grades are slipping and things that need done just aren't getting done.  Plus, we're less than 60 days from Gavin leaving for another country, so he'll probably need a healthy dose of Prozac to get him through the anxiety leading up to the trip.  You can spare me comments about kids being over medicated and all that shit.  I know what works in my household and it's certainly not what's going on right now....

We also have to go and get Gavin's passport paperwork turned in.  Apparently since he's under 16 he actually has to go with me to submit the papers.. Whatever.  I didn't realize how expensive it was to get a passport, but it's not like he doesn't have to have it or anything. Fun stuff.  He looks absolutely fucking goofy in the picture they took for it the other day at Walgreens.  If I remember to, I'll scan it because it's that funny...

Anywho, that's about it on this fine hump day.  It's about lunchtime, so I think I'll go find a nice patio to sit and have lunch and enjoy the sunny and 75ish weather we're getting before it starts raining yet again :)  Have a good one peeps!

Your Opinion Please.....

So Evan's attorney just emailed both of us and said that if our communication doesn't get better, she's going to order us both into parental counseling.  What the fuck?  I'm trying to communicate with him, but every time I do, he starts a battle of some sort.  Last week it was doctors this week it's that since Evan is with a babysitter and he's home, he should be able to pick him up at whatever time he wants on the days that he is supposed to pick him up at 4 and start his parenting time.  His argument is that he'd rather be spending quality time with the kid than have him with the sitter.  Well, it's MY time, so shouldn't the kid be doing what I arrange?

If I didn't think that Jordan was going off on some weird religious trip (which he is all the sudden) and his girlfriend wasn't a complete psycho bitch, maybe I'd consider otherwise, but I don't think he should be able to come and get him at any point he wants during the day.  I'm the one paying the sitter, not him, and I'm not going to get a discount because Jordan decided to come at 11 one day and 4 the next.  The girl has to expect some sort of normalcy for her schedule and our payment arrangement, which I can respect, but here he is, fucking things all up again.  Ugh.

So the opinion that I want here is, what is co-parenting counseling going to do for the two of us?  I'm reading about it online and it's basically for divorced people who have children old enough to know what's going on and that their lives are being changed.  E has never seen us together and will always remember us living separately.  I don't bad mouth Jordan around E ever, but I'm quite sure they're not extending the same attitude at their house.  What good could come from this kind of counseling?  The problem isn't really between Jordan and I.  It's because Jordan has his bitch chirping in his ear 24/7 creating issues to distract from the fact she's a dirty pirate hooker.  When they were separated, Jordan and I had no problems communicating, but as soon as they got back together, the problems started again.  Unfortunately she's pregnant with his kid (but wouldn't it totally be funny if it wasn't???) so she's not going away, but SHE is the problem. 

I have done nothing but bend over backwards for him thus far to make sure everyone was happy and then he goes and starts all this shit with me, wanting sole custody and all that crap.  It's fucking exhausting.  I can't afford the thousands of dollars in attorney fees I'm accruing and I sure as hell can't afford counseling, not to mention, when do I have the time for that?  I just started a 13 day work stretch that includes me working BOTH jobs 6 of those days.... To pay attorneys....  Because of him..... 

Thoughts?  Been there done that?