Another post today that isn't Kathryn-related, or pregnancy-related, but is just about things that have happened that I want to get out. And that, as much as anything, is why I started writing this. It's the every day life of a woman who has experienced the horror and heartbreak of burying a child. It's a life that includes love, children, family, highs, lows, dramas, comedy - just like anyone else's.

We've had a really lovely few days at home with the kids, starting from Saturday afternoon they've just been a joy. Rory's been very cuddly and chatty which warms my heart to see after so long seeing him so sucked into himself. Over the last few weeks things have been really good with them during the school week but they tend to get a bit ratty over the weekend. Which is all good and normal kid behaviour, it's fine and easy enough to deal with. But it took a good six weeks after getting them home from their last trip to their dad's for them to even start to settle down. And it's been like that for two and a half years now, since I first moved away from the town he lives in. Every visit to him was fraught by them getting very anxious (and naughty) before they left and then very unsettled (and sometimes disturbing) when they got back. I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of the constant interruption to family life. I worry about how unsettling it is for the kids to go through this every few months. The only time they have ever come home and settled straight back into our family life was after spending a two week block with him last year. They really need those longer blocks of time with him, to make it more meaningful for them to be spending time with him and to make them more settled before and after the visit. But he has never yet in three years stuck to any agreement we make about his time with the kids and so it is always arranged from one holiday to the next and no matter what amount of time I suggest they go to him for, he goes into "negotiation" mode and comes back with a counter offer of about half what I suggest. For fuck's sake - I'm not trying to screw him over, I'm trying to get him to spend more time with his children!!! If I suggest two weeks his first response is always to say one week (even the time he did end up having them for two, it was only after initially saying he was only doing a week and me then pointing out that they hadn't seen him at all for six months and so I thought it would be less unsettling for them to have a longer time with him - miracle of miracles he agreed); if I suggest a week he comes back with four days. Sometimes five. I just don't get it and I never will. All I know is that it's the same attitude from him that appeared after Sienna was born. I'd been out of action for the duration of the pregnancy, firstly due to continued threatened miscarriages from five weeks on and then due to daily vomiting for months on end and an excruciating condition that had me crying myself to sleep every night. (Yes I know, terribly selfish of me to not be able to cook and clean and him having to do it all for 7 1/2 months.) The day Sienna was born was the day he "checked out". It really was like it had been a conscious decision on his part to never again do anything I asked. I could go on and on with examples of it, but that's a whole other therapy session. Suffice to say that he seems to see me suggesting he spend time with his children as me "asking" him to do something and so his immediate reaction is to do less than I ask. He has never once shown any understanding that his time with the kids isn't about him - it's about them and their right to know and have a relationship with their father. I know that in the long run he's only hurting himself. But right now he's hurting my babies...

To top it off, I found out - or rather had it confirmed (I already knew) - that he lied to me yet again last year. Within days, I can't remember the exact timing but it would have been only a few weeks, of Kat's death he informed me that he would be paying me drastically reduced amounts of child support, as he was no longer working full time. I told him that he needed to contact the Child Support Agency (CSA) to update his details, so that my Family Tax Benefit would be adjusted to allow for the reduced amount of child support I received. He refused to do it. He said that the CSA had told him that if he changed his income estimate at that time I would end up owing money due to an overpayment of FTB. Didn't make sense to me - I would only end up with a bill from them if his income (and therefore child support payments) were going up, not down. And so we made an agreement that he would pay me a third of what he had been until July. But the cost to me in not having my FTB payments adjusted was going to amount to about $1000 - which he personally owed me in July. He told me that he was definitely going to be back in full time work in one of two jobs he had offers for by February (and I made the offer of him continuing to pay lesser amounts until July instead of as soon as he was back in full time work because I wanted to give him the chance to get back on his feet) and that he would provide the CSA a new income estimate in July, as per his "discussion" with them. I rang them yesterday to get the ball rolling on the whole "new estimate" thing, since I know that left to his own devices it wouldn't get done, only to be told by them that it was indeed all bullshit and they wouldn't have told him any such things. Do you know what? I'm past being sick of being lied to by him. I'm past being tired of being lied to by him. I'm just resigned to knowing that I cannot believe a single word he says. And sick to the stomach every time I think that the kids are 7 and 8 - I still have at least 10 years ahead of me of actively dealing with him. Anyway, I get the feeling that all that full time work I was told about in December has failed to materialise - or possibly even that he is deliberately working less purely to avoid paying "me" money. Nothing to base that on, just a gut feeling. And let's just say I have these gut feelings that he is about to pull some shit frequently and I have never once been wrong. As far as the money goes - it's not like it lines my pocket and pays for me to luxuriate. It's his financial contribution to the daily lives of his children. But it was so little anyway that yes, we have to stop and reconsider how to pay certain things, and we have very little room to move as it is, but it's doable. The point is, I feel he is deliberately handing over full paternal responsibility to Michael. Who is willing and happy to take it on, something I've actually struggled with a little, seeing him so whole-heartedly take on financial, emotional and practical responsibility for my children. More and more all the time, we are the family and their father is just someone they know.