Cat & Mouse

This week the children are with their mother. And today the schools are closed. So we get a voicemail at 8am this morning from B’s ex asking if I can look after the kids today. Ummm….luckily I decided to call in an inclement weather day for myself. So I say yes, bring them over (I’m declining to drive in icy conditions). Next thing we get a text message from her saying “Nevermind” and then another saying “When I told the kids they might have to go over to Nat (that’s me), they didn’t want to. And I don’t want to force them.”

So my question to you all is this, what in heaven’s name am I to make of all that?

Why bother asking me in the first place? If she’s got another plan anyway? And then to be dropped and turned down…and she doesn’t want to force them. I want to puke. ❗

I’m trying hard not to take any of this personally, but I think it is personal. I think I am being toyed with, the same way a cat will play with a mouse, chasing it, tormenting it, biting, clawing it, slowly peeling bits of skin off it’s most vulnerable parts, it’s throat, it’s belly. And simply toss it aside when the mouse is too exhausted to struggle anymore. And leave it to die a slow, painful death. That is how I feel.

Like I said to B last night. I get flack over his screwed up life from all angles….from his ex, from the kids. And for what?

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Santa, The Tale

Yesterday my 6 year old step-daughter asks me if I’d noticed in her Brownie Carol singing outing (which happened a month or so ago), that there were kids who said they didn’t believe in Santa. Of course I feigned shock and said “No!” and innocently asked ” Well, what did you say?”. “Of course Santa is real!”, she apparently exclaimed.

That then led into a discussion (or lecture, whichever way you want to see it) that some people do not believe in things they cannot see. Like God and Jesus and the Tooth Fairy and Santa and Mother Earth and Father Time and the Sandman…it was kind of cute, really because we had just watched “The Santa Cause 3” and all the mythical creatures gather together for a council meeting.

But this led me to thinking…
We (many westerners anyway) spend far too much time, money and energy perpetuating the Santa, Tooth Fairy and Eater Bunny myths. And then one day our kids find out we are liars – yes, LIARS. How is that possibly ok? What does that do to the trust the kids have for us? And what about those other times when we say “Trust me…”. Furthermore, we then expect our kids to continue to have blind faith that other unseen entities (God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, pagan gods and goddesses etc) do in fact exist. Just because we say so. Huh? Oh wait, we have already admitted to a massive, global lie (for their own good, mind you). And now of course, these OTHERS are not a massive lie, they are the truth. Goodness gracious me…what complicated webs we weave for ourselves.

I am SO not at peace with this. How much longer do I perpetuate this lie and really, in the name of what exactly?

*** Edited to add *** Further analysis on this topic can be found at Urban Semiotic.

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