Vintage

Here I sit again. Fingers ready and I don’t know where to begin.

I’ve been asked by the powers that be to write down our story. I’ve been told it’s a good one…as good as these kinds of stories go. You all will realize, won’t you, that it hurts so bad to remember everything again? Please take it into consideration when you read and pass judgment on me and mine…this hurts still. I am not past it or beyond it, and the writing of it entrenches me again in the misery and mire.

I suppose I should begin at the beginning so you will understand how good and lovely life was before it was shattered.

I met the Wookie in November of 1994. At the time of our meeting I was actually dating a guy that was in his unit. I remember he came over with the guy (I don’t even remember his name) and a couple of other friends…they had stopped by my house to say hello…one of their buddies was dating my best friend. Wookie noticed something I was crocheting for a Christmas present and asked me to make him some footies. I told him I would, never thinking anything about it. He told me later that was the moment he decided that he would marry me. LOL. Even by that point I had tired of his friend. He was an uber jerk and not a considerate boyfriend. Since I worked with my best friend (one cube over from her), every time her boyfriend would call, the Wookie would make sure to tell him to tell her to say hi to me for him. My first thoughts were, “Who is this army puke tellin’ me hi?” I mean, after his buddy, as far as I was concerned, I was D-O-N-E with military guys. It wasn’t long before my girlfriend had set us up on a lunch date. He asked me out for that night, too. Our first date was Dec. 16…and it was lovely. He was so kind and attentive.

He even made it a point to drive down from Ft. Hood to Austin for my birthday. Christmas, I spent in Dallas…but he and I called every day. He got his footies for Christmas, too. New Year’s Eve – or Day, whatever, he asked me to marry him, on the dance floor of a club in Austin, in front of God and everyone. We got applauses when I said yes.

By February, he’d gone to visit my family and ask for my hand from my dad…yeah…he did that. Still says it was one of the scariest things he’s ever done. We wanted to live together, but the military xed that out for us. They told us that the only way they’d approve us living together was if we were married. So we upped the date – we wed in March 1995….the first time. We didn’t want very many people to know…didn’t want to ruin it for them, so we kept our “official” date in Dec. To this day, much of my family still doesn’t know that we married early.

We got pregnant not long after…around Oct/Nov. we were pg. with our first daughter. I had a son from a previous marriage. We still had our big wedding in Dec – exactly a year to the day from our first date. It was lovely. My mother in law made me the most gorgeous cake, and her and my brother in law made the food. Christmas weddings are the best, but I’m jaded in that respect, my mom and my sister both have Christmas weddings, also. Of course there were poinsettias and ribbons and red and green and ivory everywhere. I still love my wedding. I still think it was the best day for us!

(sniff…I wonder if keyboards are tearproof)

My daughter was born the following July. The next year my parents moved to our city and we all decide to move in together – them in order to save $ while they were building their house at the coast, us so we could save $ to buy our first house. We stayed there for almost 2 years. Towards the end of those 2 years a few things happened. The first was that my brother in law, who has Downs Syndrome, became very, very ill. We thought we were going to lose him. It was terrible to see him, but he eventually – in about 6 months – got well. It was very hard on my Wookie. John, brother in law, is the baby and because of his condition will always be the baby of our family…everyone rallied around him…everyone. As John was on the mend, the Wookie and I decided it would be a great time to have another addition to our family. So we begun trying. We bought our first house…and a week or so after we move in I discovered I was pregnant! We were over the moon happy.

The pregnancy with my son was hard on me. He was by far my largest baby, and at one point had lodged himself so high that he stretched my sternum. I thought I was having a heart attack, and my blood pressure was through the roof! The doctor hospitalized me in my 6th month because of the bruising of the cartilage in my sternum was causing the high blood pressure to skyrocket (because of the pain). I stayed in the hospital a couple of days just wanting the child out, I hurt so bad. Wookie was there, ever concerned, ever vigilant. Since my high blood pressure is inherited, and because of the risks during future pregnancies, we decided that we would not have any more children. He decided more than I did, tho…he was vehement that he not ever lose me. I had my tubes tied after my son was born in November of 1999. I was very depressed – both ppd and knowing I wouldn’t carry anymore of the Wookie’s babies hurt so bad…the Wookie was constant through it all, telling me he loved me and didn’t care if we had 2 kids or 20, as long as I was healthy.

When my son was 2 months old, my dear mother in law practically strong-armed us into letting her sit for the kids when I worked. We’d been having trouble finding daycare that met our standards and we jumped at her offer.

Excuse me here. This part of the story is so hard. I’ve not even written it yet, and I am already crying.

Our joy at having my mother in law watch the children was too short lived, tho. About 2 months after she began watching the children, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. You have to understand…or I should make you understand that even though my mother in law had other grandsons, my son was named after her dear husband. The sun rose and set on the infant. My daughter was the first of her grand daughters that any of her children left her to babysit. See? My kids were “special” to her. I know, I know, all grandkids are special…but mine…mine were specialer. ;-) This is the shame I have…I feel so bad, but near the end, we took the kids to visit. My son had a little bit of a runny nose, and I wouldn’t let her hold him…not because she would somehow get him sick, but the other way around. Oh God! I should have put him in her lap…but she was so frail looking hooked up to the iv and losing her hair and I didn’t want her to get more sick and I am so sorry and will always be sorry. I know now she couldn’t have gotten sicker. But then, then we all were deluding ourselves with hope. We were all refusing to allow ourselves the thought that she would not make it. She passed when my son was seven months old.

Two weeks before she passed away, the Wookie took a leave of absence from his job to run my mother in law’s businesses – two taverns. It was supposed to be a short term leave, since in all appearances, my mother in law was getting better. After she passed, though, all of the siblings signed away their rights to the bars leaving them to be run by my Wookie.

Also after she passed, the Wookie and I decided to take John in. It was a big deal – he is a grown man with a child’s mind, and to ease his transition, we moved into the house he shared with his mom and put our house up for sale. I now had 3 kids, John, worked outside the home, and kept the house as a barkeep’s hours are not always conducive to helping around the casa. It was hell. The house itself was in sad need of repair, and almost as soon as we moved in my son got sick. We had nearly 4 months of him getting diarrhea and finally after many lab tests found out it was our WATER making him sick. Then the ear infections began. We had tubes put in….they barely nicked the problem.

During all this, I felt so alone. I hardly ever saw the Wookie. I would try to tell him that it wasn’t working – that I felt like I was raising the kids by myself. To add to the problems, our house wasn’t selling. It was out in the country by itself, and had been broken into by neighborhood kids a few times. One night, I got a call from a neighbor out there, our house was on fire. It burned to the ground that night. I had to call the Wookie at the bar to tell him. It was horrible. All my good memories up till then went up with the flames.

A couple of months later, my grandfather passed and left me a sizable sum of money. We decided to use those funds to buy a new house…one without black mold to make my kids sick…one with room for us all. We put nearly half of the inheritance down on the house, bought washer and dryer, couch and lazyboys and but the rest in the bank.

We moved in the summer of 2001. By then the Wookie was distancing himself more and more. He ended up closing one bar to concentrate on the one that was making more money. By the next spring he’d changed the venue of the bar…yeah. He didn’t tell me, but he changed the bar into a strip club. It was awful when I found out. He’d already been very distant, but I demanded that he shut the bar down or I’d leave. He shut the bar down.

By then, I’d begun dreaming that a woman showed up at his mother’s house with a baby girl in her arms saying the baby was the Wookie’s. The morning I dreamt that, I woke crying. The Wookie held me and assured me nothing was wrong. However, because I’d made demands on him to close the bar, he told me the only way he’d close the bar is if I took my ex to court for child support. You see, up until then my ex paid a pre-agreed upon amount…we did nothing through the courts, and I had nothing to hold over my ex’s head. It had always stuck in the Wookie’s craw that I was amiable in that part of my relationship with the ex…so it was the ONE thing he could demand of me…it was the one thing that I’d ever defied him on.

And I defied him still. He shut down the bar, but as my ex was paying more than he would have if I took him to court, I was not going to dink around with the child support he was providing.

The Wookie went back to work. I know now that he’d begun the adultery with VD (her in-real-life initials) a little before he’d closed the first bar. I shudder to think of the times I was there….of all the people that went to those bars that were nice to me, talked to me, and KNEW he was sleeping with her. I remember his birthday night I went out with him – it was a surprise – and we ended up at one of them playing pool…he disappeared into the office that night…to call her to tell her not to show up because I was there. My face still burns with the embarrassment of it all. EVERYONE there at those places knew.

Right before he closed the strip club, there was a huge tornado warning right where the bar was…d’ya know that I PRAYED that a twister would hit…this was even before I found out about the adultery…but he was so mean…so not him by then, I just wanted it over.

Regarding his change in attitude, nothing we did was right…by we, I mean my oldest and I. Nothing I did was ever good enough. Money was disappearing from our account, and he always tried to blame me. Never mind that I only ever went to lunch with my friends once a week, never mind that he always had the checkbook…it had to be me taking all the money out. Do you know what I recently…very recently found out? During the first part of the adultery, VD was thrown in jail for assaulting a peace officer. Guess who bailed her out? You got it. $800 to bail that piece of trash out of jail…but who got blamed for money missing? Me.

Rant over, I suppose. At least for a little while.

So we were where? Um, okay…he was back working. I’m betting that’s about when she turns up pregnant…it fits in the timeline of events for that to be when she told him. He’d closed down the bars, so she didn’t have that place to meet up with him anymore, and she no longer worked for him…oh? I failed to mention that she was a waitress at the bar cum strip club? Classy, right? Just where you want the potential mother of your children to work. So she tells him she’s pg, and he panics.

I’d been having trouble with my job for about 2 years. They’d had a hiring freeze and a wage increase freeze, and I’d not even seen a cost of living increase in 2 years. So he gets this grand idea to move us all to the coast – where my family now resided. Later, he told me he did it so that when he told me about the baby, I’d have somewhere to go…someone to lean on….he told me he KNEW I’d boot him to the curb when I found out. Personally, I think he was running away the only way he knew how. He’d blown through our money, we couldn’t even pay our house payment on time anymore. And the really sick part? I allowed it because God forbid I make waves and make our lives worse.

I was only too happy to move. I thought it’d be a great new start. We moved in with my parents Nov. 2002 – just until we could find a place of our own. Because my oldest was so close to my ex and because nothing my oldest could do at the time was correct in the Wookie’s eyes (nothing like self guilt to make you lash out at those you hold dearest, eh?), I let Z go live with his dad. It was the hardest decision of my life…but to this day I am not sorry I made it….unless I’m feeling sorry for myself…then I’m sorry for me because that boy is the best thing in the world and I sent him away to be happy, but I’m sad he’s not with us. God, I miss him and am so proud of him.

Dec, the baby was born, but I didn’t know it. The Wookie made a trip back for the day to visit her in the hospital under the pretense of taking a chair back to the furniture store…the seam had ripped, and they were replacing it. That morning I had told him I would go with him back here, but he never came back from his meeting to pick me up. I told my mom that day I thought he was committing adultery. She couldn’t believe it.

Jan, he found us a very crappy little beach house and we moved in. We went from a 3800 sq. foot house to 1100 sq foot….it was appalling. The Wookie still hadn’t snapped out of it…he was still distant and cold. I still didn’t have a job, but was looking. Finally one day, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I sat him down and told him not to move till he told me what was wrong. Told him that no matter what it was, we’d get through it. He broke. Told me all about the baby (now a month old) and VD. I was stunned. I suspected adultery, but not a child. That night, I was supposed to go visit my parents…my grandmother was down from up North and I rarely get to see her. As it was one of her last nights in town, I couldn’t get out of it. I begged the Wookie to go with us. He refused…he couldn’t bear to see my parents…so I went with the children alone. I remember him standing at the window…he says now he honestly thought he wasn’t going to see our children for a long time. Imagine his surprise when I came back.

I can’t really describe the feelings I felt those first few days. I was so unsure and afraid. To make matters worse, I was also in the throes of a job hunt. Once the bomb had been dropped, my desperation to find a job became frantic. Since I didn’t know what he was going to do…HE didn’t even know what he was going to do, I had to make sure my ass was covered. Because my last job was at a place where it was semi casual all the time, I really didn’t even have suitable job hunting clothes. My relief came when my mom and dad took me shopping…almost a whole new wardrobe. Because I was with my parents so often, the Wookie was certain that they were helping me find legal help. They weren’t, but because he had been so dishonest, he assumed everyone else was…including me…who’d never hurt him and never lied to him. It became unbearable at our house, so the night before I had a BIG interview, I packed up all our stuff (ALL) in boxes and went to my parents. The next day, I landed the job. God WAS watching out for me, because the job itself made MUCH more than I ever had in San Antonio…even was making more than the Wookie. To top it off, the position was very easy, much of the time I was alone, and I could begin to concentrate on ME and what I was going to do.

That night that I landed the job, the Wookie and I went to dinner to talk. He told me he loves me and he loves our kids. I told him that I’d stay with him and moved back in the next day. We did get around to discussing the baby. I told him I understood about being there for her, and that she was welcome in our house.

Imagine VD’s surprise the next night when she calls our house and I am there. I answered the phone and told her the Wookie and I were still together, but if there was anything I could do (besides drop dead) or if she needs anything for the baby to let us know. At that time, I didn’t realize the kind of person she was. I automatically assumed that yeah, he’d committed adultery…but it was with someone…I dunno…human…with a smidge of decency in there somewhere. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Unfortunately, I knew no one who’d ever been in this kind of situation. I thought I was the only one. I didn’t learn about MarriageBuilders till way into this destruction/rebuilding of Kimmy. I am loathe to say it, but I did nearly everything wrong.

The only really correct thing I did was expose to everyone…my family and his. Her family already knew…indeed, it later comes out of the woodwork that VD herself is an OC, all her siblings are OCs, and her mother is even now (even NOW) involved with yet another married man.

Stupid, unknowing me allowed him in my life when he was going to drop off and pick up of the baby at her house all the way in San Antonio – 2.5 hours away. Our first visit with the baby began on Valentines day. That day, my husband presented me with a dolphin ring…the dolphin was/is jumping through a hoop…he gave me the ring with the words, “Just let me be good to you.” I really didn’t want the ring, tho it’s become one of my favorite pieces…I just wanted my husband back. Even then, he wasn’t 100% into us yet. I didn’t know at the time that he needed a clean break from VD for that to happen.

So, as you have probably deduced, their adultery continued. She called me and vice versa…she was a mincing little thing, she’d call and ask medical questions about the rearing of an infant girl. To give you a little background on her, mija wasn’t her first baby, she was her 5th…all girls. So for her to call and ask ME about children’s health issues began to wear on me. To top it off, in one of my conversations, I tell her that it was a sin to sleep with a married man. Her reply? “It felt good.” Yep. I’ve heard heroin feels good, too, but it doesn’t make it good for me. She would constantly call and try to get digs in…later I found out she was trying to make me leave, since he wasn’t leaving me.

It also comes to light that VD had attempted to commit suicide before she got pregnant with mija. In a flash of conscience the Wookie had one night, he broke up with her. VD, being desperate, grabs a beer bottle and slashes her wrists, then refuses to ride in the ambulance to the hospital. She would only go if he took her. So he takes her and while in the hospital she says, “See, I knew I could get you back.”

We also got a strange call on our voicemail one day. Seems she thought she’d hung up, but it kept recording. We could hear her talking to her brother about buying beer to get drunk…on the recording, she calls the Wookie some names before the recording timed out. Further proof that she was using him, I suppose…but he didn’t see it yet…yet.

During this time, the Wookie left once. He went to her for a weekend, then came back to me…with all the “I love you…she is a mistake…she is nothing…” I was a sap. I fell for it. I think it scared him. The whole time he was gone, I didn’t call once…and the times HE called me, I was out with a girlfriend (getting our navels pierced). He was very surprised at my independence, I think.

And still the drama wore on. Around September of 2003 we got a phone call in the middle of the night. VD left a voicemail saying she was pregnant and if Wookie didn’t tell me, she would. I was crushed. He swore up and down if she was, the baby wasn’t his….that she was lying…you name it. By this time, I’d lost over 50 lbs. with what I affectionately (or not so affectionately) call the abject grief diet. Seems it’s really hard to eat when you’ve been twisted in knots.

In November, Wookie left again for a weekend. I didn’t even try to call. That Monday, I took off work so I could go find a lawyer. I had just dropped our son off at school and he drove up in the patrol car. He kept trying to talk to me, then he finally asked why I wasn’t at work, where was I going. I simply told him I was going to see a lawyer. He was stunned. “So soon?” he asked. DUH! He persuades me to meet him at the house so we could talk. I went home, he followed, and he told me that VD is in fact pg. He cried. I didn’t. I was shocked. Cold. Numb. I asked him what he wanted to do. He tells me he wants to stay with me. I lay down some laws (that get broken of course). Tell him he has to tell her with me there (I’m sure any OW reading this are laughing their asses off at that one)…asked him if he wanted the baby and he tells me no. That he wants her to get an abortion, and that she had even suggested it. I told him we’d see if we could come up with the money to pay for it. VD of course backed out of wanting an abortion once she found out he was still with me. Eventually, she confesses to him (we have it on tape) that she got pregnant both times on purpose. The first was to get him to confess to me, the second so that I would know that the adultery was still ongoing.

The baby boy was born April of 2004.

In June of 2004 I found Marriage Builders. Just looking back at my first posts I am struck at how inane I was. Still how gullible and silly. How I thought my situation was “special”….yeah, it was special, like riding the short bus special. But because of MB, I changed the way I reacted to the Wookie. In short, I took care of me…and because of that was able to stand up and decide what I would and wouldn’t tolerate.

We had contact with the baby from the get go. VD got a boyfriend. The Wookie hated it. The boyfriend was violent with VD…drama, drama, drama. Always drama. The Wookie’s eyes were opening up about VD and her mothering or lack thereof. You see, from the time mija wasn’t even walking yet, she had had lice. She brought it to us, we’d get rid of it, take her home and the next visit…BAMO! Lice again. He’d pick her up and she’d be propped up in her carseat IN HER CRIB, with dried, crusted milk all over, her bottle propped up with a blankie, and VD would be passed out…still reeking of beer from the night before.

While we were still at the coast, we find out that VD has a CPS case against her because the CPS worker had gone for a visit and found mijo in the care of his bigger sisters outside…no adult in sight. We called CPS countless times for the bugs.

We consulted a lawyer down at the coast who told us it would be easier to sue for custody if we actually resided in the same county as the children. It was a tough decision, but we decided to move back.

We moved in April of 2005. We bought a house. Not a large house, but still, it was ours. We consulted a lawyer, knew what $ was needed to get the ball rolling on custody, and I got a job. Little did I know, VD had one more trick up her sleeve.

Round about September of 2005, VD calls the Wookie telling him that she has the symptoms of HPV. Seems her cousin was just diagnosed, and she was using the information gleaned from her cousin to give him enough tidbits to cause him concern. He, in turn, not really knowing diseases and their causes, told me. I went ballistic – told him how it was contracted, what caused it, how it could go dormant…we were at a Burger King when I told him all of it. All the drive home he kept saying, “If she’s given me something to make YOU sick, I’ll kill her.” Unbeknownst to me, she had a card to play that he fell right for. She told him that the only way she’d go get checked out was if he’d take her. That was all the in she needed.

By mid October, he was acting weird again. After MONTHS of great stuff between him and I….it was a severe blow. The beginning of November he tells me he has an apartment and he his moving out. He’d even changed his direct deposit the week before, so I couldn’t take his money…telling me he’d still provide! I was supposed to believe that after all he’d put me through…after I’d been so gullible? NO MORE!

Mid November, before he moved out, I lost my job. I had nothing…not even milk in the fridge…just some ramen and some pork chops. I told him, and he stayed in the house…but I wasn’t trusting him as far as I could throw him. I went to ALL the aid offices. Unemployment – wouldn’t start for over a month; WIC, my kids were too old; Food Stamps, wouldn’t even give me emergency food stamps and it appeared that I’d made too much in the past few months to qualify. All the help VD got through the county and state, I appealed to and was turned down for each one. EACH ONE! Here she was a career needy person who was able, and here I was just needing a hand up. It was appalling.

But you know what. I was PISSED. BEYOND PISSED! The straw? I came home one afternoon after being turned down again, and then spending all afternoon on the employment office computer applying, applying, applying for jobs and the Wookie was sleeping in our bed. I change into my pjs…and go to the living room…then make him get up…and I tell him, “This is it. I don’t care if you are with her or not, but you will not be with her and with me.” Told him, “If you won’t man up and decide, I’ll decide…you need to leave.” Then I said something along the lines of, this is too much, I’ve got too much to worry about without having to worry about you and your bullshit.

He was shocked. I’d never thrown him out before. Not only that, here I was with nothing…nothing in the bank, nothing…supposedly needing him and I was telling him to not let the door his him in his ass on the way out. He tells me now it was the eye opener (if only I’d listened to Mel and Pep sooner)…that he knew I meant business and this was it.

A few nights later, I’d gone to bed with a headache. All through this ordeal I’ve told him he needs to give it to God and let it go. He never believed it was that simple. A few weekends before my blow up we watched a Sunday sermon given by Charles Stanley regarding what we are teaching our children. That Sunday, he cried…but he’d not let go of it yet…but I didn’t realize it was a beginning for him. So that night, I’d gone to bed with a severe headache. He’d come in and told me that he was going to watch some TV for a while, but he grabbed his bible (the one I got him in the throes of all this). It is abnormal for me to NOT get up and keep him company when he stays up, but my head hurt so bad I just let him go to the living room by himself. I didn’t wake up till he came to bed hours later. The next morning he woke…um…different. I know. Cliché. But he was. He told me all his doubts are gone, he knows what he needs to do to make our lives right and God would help him. Of course, I was still a doubting Thomas at that time. I mean, after what I’d been through, could you blame me?

He told me not to worry about finding a job. It would come when it came. As it was approaching the holidays, I knew the prospect of me finding work was slim to none. Do you know, though, he was right…God provided last Christmas. We didn’t have a lot of money, but he touched my parents who told us our Christmas gift was some $ so we could buy the kids gifts…and a very dear, special angel in the form of a friend I’ve never laid eyes on, but I’ll know her by her shining heart when we meet in heaven. I met her on MB, and many know her. She is the most kind, the most gentle person I’ve ever known. She and my parents truly saved Christmas for our children. (thank you Faithy)

I know it was soon, soon, soon after all that he’d done, but by Christmas I was finally feeling peaceful again. It’s lasted even through all VD’s most recent shenanigans.

Here are my last two update posts on MB telling everyone how our custody trials have come out:

Dated 9/26/06
“I’m sitting here with a blank Word document opened and my fingers ready…and I can’t figure out where to begin my update. It was a heckuva a lot easier to compose last night as I was trying to drift off to sleep. Unfortunately all my wittiness seems to not have woken with me this morning.

The morning started off with a good go to h-e-double-hockey-stick look. We were at the courthouse waiting for the elevator when who should step off? Yeah. She took one look at me and shot the Wookie an acid look. I wonder if I should have offered her a Tums?

(shrugs) Whatever.

Let me back up to Friday/Saturday a bit, because it will relate later in this story. Even tho it was our weekend, we let VD have the children because it was her oldest daughter’s birthday and she was having a slumber party. We let VD have the kids after she had told us she would drop them off Saturday around 2:30 or 3:00 at our house. At 2:15 she calls the Wookie and asks him to meet her at the grocery store near his work because “I don’t want to deal with your wife, and I don’t want to see your happy family.” He goes, but has a fellow patrol officer follow to make sure she doesn’t try any funny business. The exchange went smoothly (we thought).

Back to the courthouse.

We go before the presiding judge and our lawyer tells her we need to get on an open docket because it will be at least an hour or an hour and a half to present our case. We were assigned to a judge and guess what??? VD STILL doesn’t have a lawyer…she says she’s going to represent herself. We go to the appointed court room and the judge decides that because we need to establish custody first, we would put off the child support part of these hearings until custody was determined. That court date will be October 10th.

VD was supposed to go first, but she didn’t know what to do, nor did she have any witnesses to call so she deferred to us. The Wookie was called first. Let me tell you the judge’s and the court reporter gave the Wookie and VD some HARD stares after it was established why we were there and how the children were conceived. One of the prices a Wayward and an OW have to pay to have played that nasty game, I suppose. Our lawyer questioned him briefly about the adultery (they kept calling it an affair…which it wasn’t…none of the “affairs” I’ve ever been to made me lower my morals…and usually involved food and dancing…I made sure to call it what it was when I was on the stand A-D-U-L-T-R-Y!). Then he questioned him about the children and were they happy with us…yadayadayada. THEN THE KOOZE GOT TO CROSS EXAMINE HIM!!! OMG! So many half truths…none of her questioning had ANYTHING to do with the children…everything was about the adultery and the false promises….all according to her so she can show “what kind of person he is.” I wonder if she realizes what kind of person that makes HER???? The kicker was when she asks, “Remember what you said to me Saturday when we exchanged the children?” He looked as her and said, “Um BYE?” “No,” says the witch, “You mouthed I love you to me.” The Wookie remained calm, but I could tell he hated her….he told the court, “You told me you didn’t want to d/o the kids at my home because you didn’t want to see my wife or my happy little family. And you must have been seeing things because I never said I love you to you.” She looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. At lunch he kept muttering about “shoulda known it was a set up.” TG it happened in a public place is all I can say.

We broke for lunch. When we came back from lunch, she wanted her mother entered as her character witness and as evidence a letter I wrote her in 2004 (before MB, I think). The lawyer perused the letter, chuckled, then slid it to me. He didn’t contest that it be entered. The letter itself just said, you’re in your city, I’m in mine, we’ll stay that way for awhile, thank-you-very-much…if you need anything for the children, let us know. In it I also said that maybe she is a good mother because Leondra is such a sweet, lovely child. I had lastly pointed out that we all needed to learn to get along for the children’s sake.

So I get on the stand. The lawyer asks about the kids and do I love them…and describe them and their routine and what do I do for them. Then SHE got to crossexamine me. She said that in the WGL report Wookie said she is a bad mom, and I said, “That’s right, and I agree.” I must admit here that I had been loathe to get on the stand before this…but the more she tried to paint the Wookie badly after all SHE’D been a willing party to it all herself, I was ready. Every time she asked me something I looked her dead in the eyes. And my good friend Cassandra is right she’s nothing but old, worn out linoleum. You know it’s there, but you don’t have to recognize it other that to scrape it out of the room to lay down nice new shiny hardwood.

So I’d agreed she was a bad mother. She then whips out my letter and says, “But here you say I’m a good mom.” I begin to answer and she tries to talk over me. This was about the 5th time she’d done that to me or Wookie…so the judge jumps in her kool-aid and tells her “If you do that one more time, I’m going to hold you in contempt and every time you do it, I’ll charge you $50…which you’ll have to pay before you leave. Do you have that money? (no) Do you have a checkbook? (no, but I have a card) You’ll have to pay or you will spend some time in jail.” He turns to me and almost whispers “Let’s not talk over each other.” “Yes, sir,” I said. So she asks again about the letter. Again, looking her straight in the eye, I said, “VD, look at the top of that letter. It was written in 2004. I’ve had 2 years to change my mind, and I have. I think you are a terrible mother.” (God, you have no idea how GREAT that felt) I say, “For 3 years, nearly every time we’ve had the children, Leondra has had lice. For 3 years, I’ve had to search out remedies and put POISON on that baby. 3 years is long enough!” The judge then asked me about poison, and I turned to him, “Sir, it doesn’t matter a bit that the RID and the store brands and the other brands say they’re safe. Those poisons are to be used a couple of times and STOPPED. I’m sorry but logic and reason say that if something KILLS bugs, it’s probably pretty harmful to people…especially in consistent doses. I’ve done web research…I’ve switched to homeopathic remedies…but it comes down to if it kills the bugs, in large or consistent doses it could be harmful to PEOPLE. Even OFF! Isn’t good for you if you use it a lot.” The judge asked me if I’d talked to a doc…I told him every time we’ve talked to a doc they shrug and say, “use Rid.” Then VD asked, “You all had the children most of the time during the summer, why did they still have bugs?” Again I looked her dead in the eyes and said, “VD we’ve told you again and again, we drop her off clean, then in the 2-3 days she is with you, she gets them again. You know because I’ve heard Wookie tell you that you have to wash all the bed clothes, you have to vacuum the beds, you have to vacuum the furniture, you have to dry the pillows in the hottest setting in the dryer….the children cannot sleep together…and I know they do at your house, we have pictures YOU gave us of the girls sleeping together…they cannot share brushes or hair doo-dahs….” She asked me no further questions.

The judge was appalled at the amount of times the children have had bugs…and VD never really explained it.

Next she calls her mother to the stand. OMG! The rotten apple does not fall far from the decrepit tree. I think this woman has pickled her brain at the bars she frequents. And you know a logical, linear thinking person can take one and one and come out with two? You give her one and one and she comes up with laundry basket…or picture frame…or panda bear. You know the saying “a few fries short of a happy meal?” They forgot the friggin’ fries for her…they just stuck in an empty fry bag. She also brought up stuff that happened between Wookie and VD YEARS ago. Things that were said years ago were brought up again and again like they were said and written in stone by God so he should have done them. ***I don’t get why her knickers are so twisted.*** She’s been around the same block that VD is on…multiple times, even now she is a married man’s sancha….VD and her siblings are all OC…what doesn’t she get about MARRIED MEN LIE THEIR ASSES OFF DURING ADULTRY TO GET WHAT THEY WANT? But in the end she helped us. Our lawyer asked about VD and she says to the court, “she’s a good mom but she makes terrible choices in men…” (giggle) and “Wookie is a very good dad.”

VD was called to the stand…and droned on and on and on and on…I swear I think I might have hit mental-pause….all vilifying Wookie and YES! She said he ‘brainwashed her”….None of this is her fault….it’s not her fault she’s a single mom, and no she never divorced her husband…and yes she has a total of six kids and lives off the state…but she’s going to career school and she will better herself…babble, babble, babble. Our lawyer pointed out that we’d had the kids so much so she could go out and she admitted it, after all, she has to have a life, too you know. Oh, and btw ya’ll according to her, I’M MAKING WOOKIE TAKE THE KIDS FROM HER. How’s that for STOW thinking? Poor defenseless MM can’t make decisions by himself….his wifey poo does it for him. She should know by now the Wookie doesn’t do a damn thing unless he WANTS to. Our lawyer only asked her a couple of questions…all were, Yes, the Wookie is a good dad, or yes, he is providing for them….Oy vey! The judge again clarified that her only $$ was the child support she receives from the Wookie…then he had her breakdown how much she receives in assistance … OMG! I had no idea it was so cushy to be needy…she gets $768/mo in JUST food stamps! That’s more than my rent!

In the end, after falling asleep and startling awake to find myself with sleep drool down my chin (not really) she closes. The judge didn’t hesitate. He gave us the kids. Going by the WGL recommendations, we are the primary residence, she will pay child support (to be determined later), she has to take parenting classes – so do we, but NOT TOGETHER! YEA…and we only have to pay our portion of it. P/U and D/Os are now in a neutral place – the police station parking lot downtown. We have to meet her there, and she HAS to provide her side of the transportation.

The calls began shortly thereafter. She begged us to keep visitation the same. Um, hello Helen….the whole point behind US getting custody was so we can be there most of the time. She cried buckets. The judge all but told her to hush up. He said that she has a choice between standard visitations (every other weekend and Wed, I think) or extended standard (every Thur-Fri, then every other weekend Thur-Sun). He told her if she chooses extended standard she’d have them 47% of the time anyway. She never listened to him.

I did feel bad when she was crying. I mean almost to tears myself…then I pictured the 2nd time Leondra came with lice. She wasn’t even walking yet. I had to go online to make sure they were what I thought they were. We took her out on our front porch to comb through her hair. The wind was blowing off the ocean, and my biggers were jumping on the trampoline (jump-o-line). And I’m holding a baby that couldn’t walk yet, but could crawl and she’s on my lap and I’m sitting Indian style. Wookie is holding her arms down. I’m trying to comb (if you’ve ever seen a lice comb, the tines are VERY close together). The baby has lots of hair and ringlets. And she’s crying and looking at daddy and trying to twist to look at me to see what the heck I’m doing to her….and she’s asking with her eyes WHY am I torturing her. And I’m crying too. And the Wookie is just a puddle with arms.

Then I didn’t feel so bad about VD’s tears. Because that is nearly always the scene on pickup day…only the actors have gotten older.”

And dated 10/10/06

"OW has been ordered to pay child support...."

My kids are happy. My life is content…busy and full, but we are content. We are also, incredibly, wonderfully in love. The Wookie is doting and loving again. I am his world; he is determined not to lose me ever. We take time for each other…and no one will ever stand between us again.

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