THREE STRIKES

Last month, on my final day in Scotland, I was accused of using time on Skype with my children to spy on my former home. This was the candleholder incident.

Then when I returned from my trip overseas I was told I did not want my children for the week of Thanksgiving though the stepmother specifically asked to have them this year for the entire week knowing full well it was my turn to have them this year as per divorce decree.

The third strike came this afternoon via email as I was accused of not turning in my son's homework for the month of November. A month when I was not even in the country. A month when she should have been doing homework with my son instead of being preoccupied with a wedding though she had already legally married my ex in September.

My son's teacher sent an email to me, Sage's father, and the stepmother letting us know Sage did not have anything in his homework notebook today for the entire month of November. My son stated his teacher did not give him homework. Enraged, I sent an email to the stepmother demanding to know why she did not take care of this in my absence.

She replied to the teacher and put the blame on my son by telling her Sage came home with no homework though she was aware the assignments are always available online to be printed out if needed. Then she wrote me an accusatory email saying 'Sage was sent to school today without his homework' to which I replied I sent him to school with everything which he brought over to my house on Friday.

Still fuming, I wrote back asking her if she somehow intended I do homework with my son via Skype. I also reminded her that I left the country at the end of October and returned two nights before Thanksgiving. I made sure to copy the teacher on the email to ask what was missing that was somehow my fault but wasn't.

The teacher was caught in the middle and declared we simply move forward for Sage's sake. I told her I would work on his homework from now on seeing how even times before his homework was unfinished when he was at his father's house. She was fine with the idea and told me to focus on this month's homework and return to last month's if there was time.

As such, there was no after school snack time today. I went straight upstairs to start homework with Sage. We spent two hours working on half of this week's assignment, the first part being language arts where the question was asking where would you go for winter break.

My son was quick to tell me he would go to Ireland to see Mario. Then he went on writing details to his answer which included the items he would bring and the one item he would not bring. 'But not shorts', he wrote, 'Bkuz it vezis [freezes] my legs'.

We continued with math homework before dinner where we tossed the soccer ball back and forth as he counted forwards and backwards up to 120. Half of this week's homework was completed.

Though the last month of the year is off to a rough start, we have 30 days remaining wherein things can change for the better.