Javelina

 Today and yesterday have been...oppressive. To say the least. The weather's been dark and chilly; reminiscent of the Year Without a Summer. But the grass is growing, so there's that.

There's a version of glitter crash going on. There's my tendency to fill every available space with things. And things to do. But, naturally, not often the things that most need doing.

I honestly still don't know what's going on with my marriage. While I do, in fact, concur with the idea that this is probably not good for either us or the kids long term I'm not sure that ripping it apart right now is the best. There's the Margaret Cho bit that comes to mind every time: there's never a good time. There are parties, children, vacations planned, the you pushed really hard for the optional school that was so far away and now you're trying to get away without participating in any of the drop-offs. And who wants to let you just...get away with that?

Ugh. I just, like, most of the moms I see on the internet (not as often in real life; which is a great testament to my friends' abilities to either not marry assholes or tamp their own anger waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down) have a lot of anger about being unappreciated. Not only in the You Do Most of the Executive Functional Household Running Tasks Way (which is hard for me for lots of reasons anyway, and I wouldn't say I'm great at it but my partner appears truly incapable of it) but in the my partner spends a lot of his bandwidth telling me You Are a Bad Mom Way. ...which I'm not.

I've thought about it. Lots! I have mom guilt about lots of things - don't worry. But! I'm not actually a bad mom. We have food groups, we have outside time and screen time, I play with her, etc. and she knows she's very very loved and so far appears to be a #decenthuman. 

But while I have asked my partner to write things down that he's asked me to do that he feels I'm purposely not respecting his wishes about this morning was the first time he's actually done so. Last night I was making dinner and asked Leels if she wanted to help cook (putting salt in water that was just put on the heat, but not yet warm). Well, S didn't like this and yanked Leels out of the kitchen. He set her on the couch and came back to the kitchen to yell at me: "Do you really think this is a good idea?" Angry face. Finger jabbing down at me. 

Well, she did get burned. Three years ago. One time. On Easter. When both my mom and I were in the kitchen supervising her. My mom physically closer to her. Making rice krispie treats that his mom had given us. To make together. Since that time? No. She hasn't. 

Granted, it was pretty bad that time. Second degree. But even so, his first instinct at the time wasn't to comfort Leels. To perform first aid and make sure she was okay. It was to scream at me. While I was running the cool water over hands and comforting her. Then he scooped her up and took her to, I thought, the emergency room and told me not to follow them. Because that's where I said he should take her - if it was truly deserving of the verbal abuse. 

He didn't. I gave them some lead time. So I could cry and shake it out. Then I went to the Providence ER. They weren't there. He wasn't answering my phone. I drove by his mom's house. They were there. 

This morning - after I gave him a blowjob - he left this note on the stove: 

"The STOVE is very HOT and can hurt Leels AGAIN. Please do not let her near it when it is on."

It's fair to say that I shouldn't have let her "help cook" when she was two. It was also three years ago. And she's very aware. And thoughtful. I had a medical terminology textbook that had a picture of a second-degree burn in it and she asked to look at the picture and talk about her experiences, how to be safe next time, etc. To my irrational system there's also the thought that I was not the only adult in the kitchen. And from there it dominoes into times that blur together. 

I can't pick them apart anymore but I know they include getting yelled at for going down the stairs to the car in the winter multiple times despite there not being another way to get to the car and never falling and the child's father not finding it urgent enough to get up in the fucking morning and help but definitely urgent enough to spend precious moments of his life yelling at me about [side note: there was an event from his previous marriage that prompted this behavior - but you don't get a free pass to be shitty forever but not modify any behavior on your part that could help your child out or prevent injury or whatever], getting yelled at for the house not being clean enough and that's why our child kept getting sick [side note: only one cleaning. Primary parent. Breastfeeding. Working full time and part time.]. There are more, those are just the two foundational ones.

Listen, look: I'm not perfect. He's not perfect. I struggle with asserting myself and after I hit about 28 I got to be pretty fucking patient. The problems are complex. I believe he really does love his kids. But he's not doing the work on himself and every woman in his life is a huge scapegoat.

The reasons that make it a nightmare to co-parent with him won't go away if we were to separate; they'd just get worse. And I don't want to dump parenting duties on his mom - because that is one hundred percent what would happen. He still wouldn't be stepping it up with the parenting. He'd just outsource it to her. 

I'm gonna go numb out by doing homework and taking a table apart.

UGH. I want the SUN.