Yours, Mine, Ours

Fred and I had our first major argument yesterday. It wasn’t really an argument, per se, more like I was feeling shitty about myself so I picked a fight with him. I've been having a lot of trouble with the girls lately, and he has really been wonderful. But its one of those things where its ok for me to say that they are rude and inconsiderate and disrespectful (and a bunch of other stuff), and something entirely different when someone else chimes in that they agree. Clearly, we are becoming a blended family – my girls really love him, he loves them, I love his daughter (she hates me), and the more time that passes and the deeper our relationship evolves, the more the line of what’s mine is mine and what’s his is his is blurred. In a nutshell, here’s what’s been going on:

1. About a month ago, Danny got some bug up his ass and decided that he was mad at his children. Without warning and absent any explanation, he stop returning their calls, turned off the cell phones, failed to pick them up for his scheduled weekend, and decided that he just wasn’t going to talk to them. Needless to say, this has caused my girls unspeakable grief and confusion. (More about this another time.)

2. T got caught smoking pot and then, right at the end of her punishment term, she got a 3-day in school suspension for being insubordinate to a teacher. Now she's grounded for the remainder of her life.

3. The police got called on E for threatening to shoot another little girl in our neighborhood with a toy gun. It sounds worse than it actually was (although at the time, it was pretty bad), and I’m not making any excuses, but this thing with Danny has really fucked with her head and she acted out of sheer frustration. Thank G-d for Fred for being the voice of reason. He spoke with the po po, the moms that called the po po, and by the end, they were inviting him over for coffee and Danish.

4. I gave Fred a drawer.