GET OVER IT

‘Are you Stefan’s biological son?’

‘Yeah’.

‘Is Frances your mom?’

‘No’.

‘Who’s your mother?

‘Natalija, why?’

‘Oh, yeah, I heard Frances complaining about your dad seeing your mom.’

‘Oh, yeah. I remember that.’

When my son told me about this exchange of words which took place at school today, I thought what a strange conversation for my son to have with a friend of his middle sister’s. I also thought how awkward it might be for anyone who comes to his father’s house to hear a woman yelling at her husband about something which should not even be an issue. I wonder what children think when they hear something like this. When adults keep telling children to behave and then they see them setting a bad example by misbehaving themselves.

It is quite baffling that an adult would want to ban all communication of a children’s parents with each other whilst she talks to the father of one of her sons on a regular basis. The recent attempts at repairing a broken relationship with our son has caused quite the stir in the other household as her jealousy spirals out of control and she accuses her husband of having dates with me. I conjure images of rolling eye emojis as I think how crazy that all sounds. The only thing we as parents want at this point in our lives is for each of us to be able to see our children since we missed out on that experience all last year.

My son spent all yesterday afternoon with his father, building on his remote-control car with an assortment of extra parts his father bought from a shop that went out of business. Sage got on the bus after an early release Wednesday and skipped his kickboxing class. His father dropped him off around 20,00. Not once did I call to see when he would be home or to disturb his time with his father, but I was thinking how I would like to see my girls for more than half hour a month as they hurry off to be with friends.

After tonight’s late kickboxing class, where Sage earned his purple belt during the rank assessment, he texted Cinnamon to see if they were home yet so we could stop by and drop off a present that he had for his father. A belated Christmas present. Sage had texted his father before class but was told the girls had a dance class so they would not be home. Since we were coming home quite late ourselves, we decided to see if they had returned. As Sage texted Cinnamon, he found out they were only ten minutes away from their house. We waited at the top of their driveway.

The weather had cooled down significantly to about 3 degrees Celsius and Cinnamon had bare arms whilst Saffron had a blanket wrapped around her as she sat in the back seat with her baby sister in the small Lexus. Sage handed him the box with the pine green cotton sweater he chose. His father seemed delighted about this choice.

As we all stood around the car, I brought up the topic of being able to see the girls more often. He said he wants the girls to come to my place me every other week and again mentioned that they have social lives which would require my driving them to see friends. I briefly discussed plans for this upcoming weekend with Cinnamon, knowing this is a rare opportunity to see them without stepmother being there. Seeing how Cinnamon was shivering, I told her to go inside. We continued our conversation later when Sage and I returned home. Sage then went inside the house to try to find the hoodie he got in the Netherlands during Christmas. One that he left behind during yesterday’s visit. Cinnamon was unable to find it earlier today and I was worried that it would somehow be ‘lost’. As had happened to Saffron’s crocheted blue swimsuit a couple of years back.

After about ten minutes, Sage returned to the car with his hoodie and his father following closely behind him. My car was on, and we were ready to go, but I took the opportunity to speak my mind about his wife’s bizarre behaviour. I told him I was not going to let her prevent me from talking with him about our children. That I was not going to run around in fear of her and her jealously. He understood very well and said, ‘it’s her problem…she needs to get over it.’