So here we are, Thursday, one week to go before the bird gets sliced and devoured. During this time of year I usually like to think about all that I am thankful for, to think ahead a few weeks to Christmas and Matt opening his presents. I like to think about all of the warmth, the food, the family gathering. I say that I usually do, because this year I have not gotten to that point yet.

I am frustrated with my ex-wife; though I am thankful to be able to prefix wife with ex. I called yesterday and left a message for her to have him call me back. This could have been done at some point in the last 24 hours. Tonight I called and left another message for her to have him call me back, around 8:00 PM. I called back a little later, at 9:03 PM, she says he’s in bed. Very short, very quick, he’s in bed. His bedtime is around 9:00, I give that up. Many times I have spoken with him after 9:15, many. I would love to know why my call was not returned by him, I never will but that is what is in my head so I am sharing it. The fact is I am supposed to be able to talk to my son. I am permitted to talk to him a couple of times per week for 15 minutes, this is if I call. If he calls it can be as often as he wants and as long as he wants without interference. One night very recently he had called and we were chatting away, his mother-like person came storming into the room and said she needed the phone and to get off right now, that he could call me back. Everything is right now with her when she wants something, let someone else ask of her and it might be a few months if ever. I describe her in this as storming into the room, I use that because that is the impression you get listening to it unfold over the telephone, you can actually hear her enter a room whether she is speaking or not, it’s crazy. I point this out not to be vicious or anything, this is just the experience and I have heard it from others. So back to the point, he did not call me back the night that she cut him off. That is considered contempt of court by the rules defined here in Shelby County. She can’t seem to get that through her head, she has a court document in black and white written in common English and fails to comprehend what it says. It blows my mind.

So she is up to her old tricks again, I am picking Matt up tomorrow for the weekend, first one in 2 months. She always has a reason that she has to switch them, but we’ll make them up….yeah, we will. When he is old enough to make decisions they will get made up, he knows what she does. He talks to Angie and I about it, she thinks that he is not picking up on the way she is. He is a very sharp kid, he plays dumb, he knows what knowledge he should or should not reveal and who it should be revealed to. She is hurting herself by doing all of the things that she is doing now. I think she believe she can manipulate him like her mother did to her, she fails to realize that he has a lot of me in him and he is not quite that simple of a creature.

Last week Matt called on Monday and was talking about how he is supposed to go to the prison to see his uncle this next weekend, which was last weekend; which was my weekend. She did not get on the phone with me during this conversation; we did not discuss this or agree to anything. I called back a couple days later to find out what in the name of God she was thinking taking an 8-year old child to a prison to visit a convicted murderer that he never even knew; her brother went to prison 2 years prior to Matt even being born. This sparked her showing her true colors. So anyway, I told her that I did not in any way agree to any of this happening, losing my weekend and my son hanging out in a prison. So I went ahead with my pickup as defined by the court, not by her. We went down there at 7:00, nobody was home so we waited until 7:15 at which point I knocked on the door, confirmed no answer. We then went to the police station to file the report. We could have lined up the charge for criminal interference with custody at which point the prosecutor would have taken the charges, issued a warrant for her arrest and had an officer serve it. Can you imagine her reaction? They told us that we would need to be available to come and get Matt or else he would be put in the care of children’s services. We were all good with that, what a shock factor that would be for her, thinking that she can do whatever she wants because she wears the custodial parent title only to be arrested and placed in the back of a cruiser in front of all her neighbors, and the children. Yeah, that photo would be placed next to her mother of the year award. Well, he guided us down another path, one that might have a better long term reward. Get him to go with us to try to get Matt, file a report that she refused and take that along with the other reports they have on file into the court and hit her with the contempt charges. Hard to ignore the 4 or 5 that we have filed now in Fairborn. These types of things has overturned much custody here in Ohio. It shows that she is not looking out for the best interest of the child. Since I am pretty sure we have enough on file to show that she does this, we will probably go the other route next time, I want to see if they will put her picture in the paper. So last Friday we went to her house with the officer and she told him that we had a verbal agreement to switch weekends. He did not buy a bit of it. Why would we make an hour drive with gas prices over $3.00 per gallon if we had agreed to switch weekends? She thinks everyone else is as dense as she is.

Anyhow, she now says that we are no longer going to switch any weekends, this one we are about to enter is the exception since we have already finalized it. She says that she has contacted her lawyer Heath Hageman, or however it is spelled, and that she is prepared to do battle. What does this mean? Should I get on my armor and go stand in the field? By contacting a lawyer she has got the upper hand? I know, what was I thinking? You all know that I find intelligence attractive so this type of thought process should have turned me away a long time ago. She is going to go into court and make it so that rule 22 is followed to the letter and that nothing will ever be switched and nobody will have any problems with anything. Yeah, she and her lawyer are going to go in there and say how it will be. Could be I guess if not for the guy sitting behind the bench with the gavel. Rule 22 is written for change, it expects that weekends will have to be switched, things happen, events need attended, and kids get sick. You have to switch. But the other thing about this whole mess is that she should not even be custodial parent. That will be clear in the police reports for one along with the voicemail recordings and other documented dates that she failed to follow the rules, things that have not been before the court, things that have not already been decided upon and put into the past. On top of these things, she sat before the court during the divorce carrying another mans child and made me out to be some bad person or something for not wanting to be with her and won the right to custodial parent. This might be someone reasonable in some countries, but none that I am currently familiar with. Court will not produce an enforcement of rule 22, if so it will be very temporary as we come to agreement on a shared parenting arrangement. If she fails to agree the court, I should say most courts, will look at the facts and overturn the custody. Why? Because she fails to do things that are in the best interest of the child, she purposely and maliciously violates the rules of the court, she repeatedly contradicts all that has been gone over in her parenting class, and she would not be welcoming to any agreement for shared parenting.

As I sit here writing this it has made me come around to the thankful side of things. It makes me realize how great Angie is. How beautiful she is both inside and out. It makes me appreciate her logic, her intelligence, her ability to decipher proper grammar. Little things like this. I am sitting here right now feeling like one of the luckiest people on the planet, if for no other reason than for that, her. And everything else, it will work out as it should, the universe has its way of putting everything into its proper place. I hope it isn’t real bad of me to laugh my butt off when it does, because I will.

Take care web.