Phone call with the other mother

Today was a home day for us. It was supposed to be uneventful, but it turned out to be not so uneventful in the end due to the other mother! It started with me sending her an email and asking for her help with yaincoa and watching what he eats as requested by the doctor (he is between overweight and obese and we have been trying to get his weight down for a year now, but the wicked witch does nothing to help us and does not believe the doctor). He has to complete a weekly ‘menu’ of what he has eaten each day so that he can become aware of healthy eating and so that the doctor can also see what he is eating. We complete ours every week, but despite sending the information to the wicked with about 3 times now, she has never done one, and continues to give him food hat he shouldn’t be eating (i.e., chocolate waffles, chocolate croissants etc). The doctor specifically asked Yain to complete it during his weeks with his mother, and for this I sent her the message via email and text. The following week when we got yaincoa and I asked him if he had completed his menu with his mom he said no, and when I asked why he told me that his mother had told him not to complete it, she didn’t want him to. This plus the fact that she phoned us on Monday to tell us Yain was sick, however when we got him home in the middle of the day, he was clearly not sick. She claimed he had a “temperature” of 37.2 and a really bad cough. He had no temperature and did not cough once, but quite ‘coincidentally’ he had not done his homework on the weekend that was due that day. I was fuming with her and sent her an email to say that although we try and try, she refuses to do anything for us or for Yaincoa. She made a few comments about me to xavi resulting in me sending her a message this morning. She phoned me and we had an argument. She started off trying to be all sweet and serene saying that she didn’t have any problems with us. After a few minutes she was calling xavi a liar ad telling me that we were damaging and traumatising Yaincoa. A few minutes she was childishly trying to make comments about my parents. After that she was then claiming that we are envious and jealous of her and her life. She then swiftly started to insult me and finally she finished the conversation by doing that thing we all did when we were twelve years old by putting on a mock sing song voice while you taunt the other person and then she put the phone down on my ear as I was asking if she as actually 12 years old. What did I say? I told her that xavi was no liar as the truth was that she has never taken her son to the dentist, or the doctors in at least the last 2 years and that she hasn’t paid his support. I told her that she will have to explain to yaincoa one day why she is leaving him with her parents after everything she has said about them, I reminded her that if yaincoa has any issues about body it is probably due to the fact that she told him he has a fat stomach and that at 7 years old she was teaching him how to do sit ups, or the fact that even though he knows he shouldn’t be eating chocolate doughnuts, she keeps buying them for him. I laughed out loud when she said I was jealous of her! I was shaking when I got off the phone but I also felt a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders. Wicked witch and I have spoken once before on the phone and it went more or less the same way – she just continually speaks and I lose all hope with life!

I realised something that I had slowly started to realise before. Wicked witch is incredibly childish! I think this is due to the fact that she has no argument, she is not right, and deep down she knows it although she would never admit it. So when you call her up on something, she tries to throw it straight back at you. Remember when you were in school and you would say something to someone in a fight and they would simply answer the same thing straight back at you? That is her. I also realised with great sadness that she will never ever change. As many times as we try with her and as many different way that we try, she remains the same. This is not good news for yaincoa or for us.

But xavi and I discussed all of this during this week and we have both realised that nothing will change with her. We are trying one more time with the lawyers and after that is she remains the same which I suspect that she will, then we will simply continue doing everything we can for yaincoa and hope that the good we are trying to do will combat the bad that she is doing. We cannot keep wasting our energies with her. I can only hope that one day she may realise all of this and start to do everything that yaincoa deserves from his mother.

A little boy in danger??

In the beginning of my relationship with xavi I always felt a little bit sorry for yaincoa for having a very small family. He had his daddy and his mommy and Xavi’s parents with whom yaincoa spent almost every weekend. He is very close to his grandparents for this. But that was it. Xavi’s brother died in a car accident when xavi was 16, so yaincoa didn’t have an uncle and therefore no cousins. On the upside he did get to know the children of Xavi’s cousins who he gets to see every now and then, but not too often. But that is it for family on Xavi’s side.

The side of the mother, the wicked witch, is bigger. She has her mother, her father, a sister and 2 brothers. However not too long after Yaincoa was born, she cut off all contact with them. Up until last year, she told yaincoa that her parents died in an airplane crash. I think that this was totally unnecessary as it may give fears to a child about airplanes without any reason. Why not simply say that they lived in a different country so he couldn’t see them. Why did she cut off all contact with her family? The story she told Xavi and many, many of her friends is that her father abused her when she was a child and that her mother knew what was going on and simply turned a blind eye. When I heard this story I honestly did not know whether to believe it. I still don’t. For a start, if something like this has happened to you, it is not something that you go around telling everyone. It is something you are ashamed by and something you keep to yourself only telling a very few people. Why tell so many friends? Then I wondered why did she wait until she was 30 years old to cut them off? Why not sooner? Then I thought well ok, I can understand not talking to your parents, but why would you also cut off your 2 brothers and your sister? On the other hand I thought it would probably explain some of the wicked witch’s issues.

I felt bad for yaincoa as he had 2 uncles, and aunt and possible cousins that he didn’t even know. His childhood could have been different. He could have had many more family moments and had more of an idea of family and uncles, aunts, cousins etc. But I didn’t think about it much more until last year.

We were sitting on a terrace outside a bar having a juice with yaincoa when suddenly there was one of wicked witch’s brothers. Xavi and Arturo greeted each other like long lost friends, briefly commenting on the wicked witch and the difficulty xavi has with her. Arturo made a comment along the lines of he knew exactly how his sister was.  Xavi then introduced Arturo to Yaincoa saying ‘this is mommy’s brother’. Arturo then mentioned that he was going to visit his mother and father in front of Yaincoa. The same mother and father that wicked witch had previously explained died in an airplane crash. Me and xavi were both watching Yain thinking ‘shit, shit, shit! How is he going to accept this? What is he going to think? Does he remember the story about his grandparents dying in an airplane crash? Has he realised that Arturo’s parents are his grandparents? What has wicked witch said about her brother? Does he even know he has an uncle? Does he even understand?’ yaincoa didn’t really seem to understand. Xavi gently mentioned the airplane crash, but (thankfully) yaincoa did not seem to remember anything! I told xavi that it was best and as far as his uncle was concerned, maybe he didn’t really get it, maybe he didn’t know it was his uncle as his idea of family had been mommy, daddy, grandparents. We didn’t say anything more to yaincoa as we didn’t want to open up a hornets’ nest.

The following week wicked witch received the court papers from us to her for not paying her share of the custody. She went ballistic and she then contacted her other brother Alberto. Xavi had heard that Yaincoa had met this brother and so he sent him and email congratulating him on the birth of his daughter and saying that he was very happy that Yaincoa was getting to know them all. Wicked witch had apparently already managed to weave her web around this brother as he never replied and when we met him he never said a word to us, despite us greeting him.

Over time we then heard that Yaincoa had met the mother of wicked witch. Xavi felt a little unsure about this one as wicked witch had said many bad things about her. After making contact with her own mother, wicked witch phoned Xavi’s mom and called her own mother a whore saying that she didn’t want to be with her and she didn’t want to leave yaincoa with her, but then she would organise to meet up with her mother and Yaincoa in the park on various occasions. She was playing everyone. Xavi accepted this as from what he could hear; they never been to the grandparents flat.

Then the Christmas holidays came. By this time we had heard how yaincoa had been with his uncle Alberto on many occasions. We discovered that most days of the holidays that he was with his mother; she left him with his grandmother in the flat with his grandfather. This is the same man who apparently abused her as a child. Through conversation we discovered that wicked witch did not enter the flat. This has continued throughout January.

So it seems that she herself would not enter the flat supposedly for what her father did to her, but yes she would leave her only child in the flat with a supposed abuser and the woman who apparently turned a blind eye to the whole thing?

We could not believe it. Xavi phoned her and asked her what was going on, and asked if her stories about her father were true. She confirmed that yes, they were! When xavi asked how it was possible that she was taking yaincoa to the flat of this man, her response was that it was because Xavi didn’t help her (total crap, she hadn’t even asked) and because Xavi’s parents live far away – 1.5hrs away, not exactly far away. Now I am sure that everyone agrees that there is no reason on this earth that you would leave your child in the house of a man who you claim abused you. NEVER and for no reason at all. Especially not as she never asked xavi for help and because she has been taking yaincoa to Xavi’s parents for 8 years, they haven’t moved, they live where they have always lived. Nothing has changed.  You would take your child to any other place other than the flat of a supposed abuser.

The other side of the coin is what if she was lying? What is she cut off contact with her family for some other reason and she then made up the story as she always likes to play the victim in every situation? What if she denied her parent’s access to their grandson or some other reason? And what if she was going around all of Barcelona telling people her father was an abuser. What kind of person would do that? What kind of person would make up that story about her family and about herself? Why would you lie and tell people you were abused as a child when you weren’t? What must be wrong in your head to do that?

So here we are in the position of not knowing whether Xavi’s son is spending time in the house of a possible abuser or not.

Or whether the mother of yaincoa is so messed up she would make up these stories.

We have sent an email to wicked witch’s brother explain and asking him if this is true or not. We don’t know what else to do. Do you send the other brother the same email; do you send the mother the same message, or the other sister? Or will wicked witch just say that xavi is lying to try to hurt her.

Lawyers can’t do anything either, there are no reports against the father.

So can someone please tell me what the hell are we supposed to do?

The truth about me and the other mother

Xavi has a son from a previous relationship, a beautiful, wonderful little 8 year old boy. The same cannot be said for the mother of this little boy. I have had a thorn in my side for almost 5 years; she is about 1meter 48 tall, has long brown hair and goes by the nickname of the wicked witch. This is not your typical story about the new girlfriend not liking the ex partner of the boyfriend, this story if fairly unique. Let me tell you the story about me and the other mother.

Some people ask me why I dislike Yaincoa’s mother so much and I am sure that many people think that I am biased, I am taking Xavi’s side in the seperation or it is due to some unfounded jealousy due to her and xavi having a child together. I will admit that in the beginning of our relationship I was insecure about xavi and the wicked witch getting back together as they have a son together. I imagined situations that could occur between them and felt scared. She was the mother of his child, I was the tourist who was from a different culture and didn’t speak the language. However a few months into our relationship, I quickly realised that xavi would never go back there.  For a long time I tried to encourage xavi to put aside all the bad that wicked witch had done to him and try to be the better person for the sake of yaincoa. I encouraged him to shelve his feelings and to try again and again and again with her.

After a while that changed. I started to see what wicked witch was really like; I started to see her true side. She has two sides. I have seen both. she has hated me for most of the 5 years xavi and I have been together, but at one brief point, she showed me the side she shows people sometimes, not the real her as this side of her only appears for brief periods. But when she showed it to me, it could have made me think ‘what a great person’ if I didn’t already know what she was really like. Let me explain. I will try to be as brief as possible, but I don’t know if I will manage.

In the beginning I witnessed her threatening xavi with yaincoa along the lines of ‘this weekend you won’t see your son, you can’t have him’ etc. She knows how sensitive xavi is and she would make these threats but never follow through, she would do it to hurt him. For the first few years of our relationship she would still make moves towards xavi. She would answer the door in her pants, she would suggest they get back together for the benefit of yaincoa, she would wear a sexy little practically see through black dress to a school meeting when she knew xavi would be there, when she found out we were having some money problems, she would offer to xavi that he (and not me) could sleep in her flat, and after me being with xavi (and therefore yaincoa) for a year, she tried to prohibit me from going to Yaincoa’s baptism. And when I did go, she did not say a word to me and instead tried to play a game of how close she was to Xavi’s parents by holding her mother’s hand and telling her how much she loved her in front of me. Apparently not something she had done before. She now simply refers to me as ‘the other one’. I think that I have my own personal reasons just on this alone to dislike her.

But it is not only for that.

The father who would do anything for his son

I have seen her being sweet and friendly to Xavi and I have seen her saying all the right things. I have then seen her insult him and being more vulgar than I have ever seen anyone being. She has told lies about xavi to people who used to be her friends (and who are now our friends) and she has called Xavi a bastard behind his back in front of other parents at Yaincoa’s school. In emails only from last year she has called xavi a liar 16 times, told him that any problem with yaincoa is ‘uniquely and exclusively’ his fault 6 times, called him selfish 5 times, told him he has a mouth full of shit twice, told xavi that he is traumatising / destroying / screwing up the life of yaincoa 8 times, calls him a closet gay 4 times, called him a bad son a bad father and a bad person various times. She has also told him that he doesn’t respect her various times. Yet somehow she feels all the insulting and name calling she does is not a lack of respect. What has xavi called her? Nothing, I read every single one of his emails. What has he done to get these responses from her? He has, at the most, been a nag. About what? About trying to get her to be more responsible with regards to her son as I am about to describe. I have seen her lie to xavi repeatedly, I have seen her insult him repeatedly, I have seen her do everything she can to hurt xavi and cause him as much pain and distress as possible. Just for this I think that I would have enough reason to dislike her

But it is not only for that.

I have then seen how she is with her son. A sweet and innocent little boy who loves and adores his mother but who comes with his fair share of problems. I have heard how after a few months of being with xavi she talked about wanting a baby. Xavi did not. After 5months of being together, she got pregnant. Although she was pregnant, she didn’t feel that this was reason enough to stop drinking or smoking constantly throughout her entire pregnancy. Yaincoa has had asthma and chronic bronchitis all his life. When yaincoa was born she gave him as much as possible to Xavi’s mother to look after so that she would have her free time and her time with xavi. Xavi protested this, but she said it was normal. She would let Xavi’s mom stay up all night with yaincoa when he was a baby and was sick and she would sleep through the night in the other room. I have seen her throw herself on the floor hugging him in a grand and exaggerated gesture after being away from him for . . . . 2 days. I have seen her giving yaincoa to Xavi’s parents 4 weekends out of 5 because she works for 4 hrs on a Saturday and therefore for some reason chooses not to be with her son for the whole weekend. I have seen her leaving yaincoa with Xavi’s parent for practically every single one of her weeks during 3 months worth of summer holidays. She has tried to refuse to pick him up from us on various occasions when it is her turn to be with her son because he was sick and in her words ‘if he is sick he can stay with you’ (by sick I mean a cold, I don’t mean severe flu with fever when he should remain in bed). She has prohibited xavi from taking yaincoa to a Barcelona family football game one night of her week to hurt xavi without thinking in the pain it caused her son who loves Barca football club. I have seen her take her son to work with her and then leave him to wonder around the marina all by himself, 100 meters away from her, crossing the road alone, the same road where we witnessed a car almost hitting a child. We have had shared custody of yaincoa for 2 years and 4 months. Before that xavi only had part custody meaning that it was the responsibility of the wicked witch to take care of healthcare etc. Since gaining shared custody, Xavi has done everything possible to have his share of responsibility in every matter. She has never taken her son to the dentist in his whole life. He had to have fillings 2 years ago and actually had to have work done as far as the nerves due to the damage for all the crap he had eaten. Her response was that this was normal, he was a child. She has gone so far as to cancel 2 dentist appointments last year that fell in her week so that she didn’t have to go. In contrast xavi took him 3 times last year and twice this year. Yaincoa needed x Rays on his teeth as he may have needed braces. When he asked wicked witch to organise this (as xavi had done every other appointment) she refused. Her answer was ‘it is your thing, you know more about it than me, finish what you started’. It is not actually Xavi’s thing, it is about Yaincoa. Xavi took Yain to the dentist 3 days ago and yes, yaincoa needs braces. Wicked witch has still not asked how the appointment went or anything about the fact that her son needs braces. She forgot to get some of Yaincoa’s vaccinations done and he was in the health system as a girl which means that he was scheduled for the Papillion vaccination – a vaccination for girls only. Xavi had to fix this and get the missing vaccinations sorted out. She did not take yaincoa to the doctor for around 4 years (missing various appointments and check ups he needed to have for his age) and last year she just didn’t turn up for various appointments that fell in her week. In contrast xavi took yaincoa to 4 doctor’s appointments and twice to the doctor for his feet (I don’t know the name in English!). A year and a half ago we had to take yaincoa to the doctor as his weight had increased during summer holidays. The doctor told us that he was technically classed as being obese and gave us strict instructions to follow so that he could lose weight. We sent the information to wicked witch on 3 various occasions however she continues to order take away pizzas, buy chocolate croissants and give yaincoa chocolate waffles and ice creams without a second thought. She also feels that it is acceptable to give a growing child half and apple, a carrot or on one occasion, an ice cream for breakfast. When we ask her about this her answer is that her son is marvellous and that he is not obese. Despite us sending various notes from the doctor that he was obese and now thanks to our hard work he has dropped down to overweight. When you look at yaincoa he does not look overweight, he looks fine, but it is not all about how he looks, it is about giving him a healthy diet. Something we do our best to do and something she screws up every week by not following a word of the doctor’s advice. And yet she has the audacity to tell yaincoa he has a fat stomach and to then teach her (then 7 year old) son how to do sit ups. She has often let yaincoa leave the house without brushing his teeth and on various occasions she has put her jeans and t-shirts on him to wear to school (she in tiny, they fit him). She lets him sit in the front seat without his child safety seat and we have seen her doing wheel spins with the car due to pulling away so quickly. She has lied in front of him, she has made him lie for her and she has told him that his father is a big liar. She has not paid her half of the shared custody for more than 18 months owing thousands but she has bought him a play station, a Nintendo and x box – spoiling him unnecessarily. He has had problem with his behaviour in school and has bought home various bad report cards, but she does not punish him. Her response ‘he is just a child’. We do extra work with yaincoa almost every day to improve his grades, and they are now improving, she does nothing. She claims that her father abused her as a child and that her mother just accepted it. She explained to yaincoa that her parents died in an airplane crash. I don’t know the reason she lost contact with her 2 brothers and her sister. Despite making these claims about her parents, she has recently made contact with her family again, she moved flat to be closer to them and she is now leaving yaincoa in the same flat as her mother and father whilst she works. She refuses to be in the same room as her father, says he is an abuser, and then leaves her son there. She phones Xavi’s mother and calls her own mother a whore and then she leaves yaincoa with her.

For these reasons I do not simply dislike her. I will not say the word hate, but what I feel towards this woman is much more than dislike. She is not a nice person and as far as I am concerned she in not fit to call herself a mother. Being a mother is a lot more than simply giving birth to a baby. Being a mother is everything that she is not and will never be. On the few occasions I have said something to her about yaincoa her response has been simple “you are no one to me, don’t talk to me, you are not a mother”. Firstly, I didn’t have to be a mother to know that she was not doing things the right way, that she was not doing everything in the best way possible for the benefit of her son. Now that I am a mother, I am actually disgusted by her behaviour. When Emmeline is sick I want to be right there by her side to make her feel better. I would never dream of palming her off onto her grandmother, nor would I ever think to say that I don’t want to be with her if she is sick. I am her mommy and I want to make her feel better. When she has to go to the doctor, I will go with her, even if xavi could take her to every appointment, I would still go with her because I want to know exactly what is going on with my child. I will do everything possible to give my child a healthy diet and a healthy upbringing. I will push my child and help her as much as possible with her school work and her grades. I will do everything possible for my child.

I see this woman repeatedly doing what she can do hurt xavi without realising there hurt it causes her son. I see her not looking after his diet, not taking him to the doctor, not taking him to the dentist or the foot doctor, nor does she show any interest in any of these; she doesn’t push him to get better grades, she doesn’t pay his maintenance, she dresses him in her clothing, she put him in danger, she lies to him, in front of him and about him, and she leaves in the care of a man who she claims abused her and a woman she claims turned a blind eye.

I don’t think that I am being unfair in my feeling towards her. I think that not just any parent, but any person in my situation would feel the same as I do  . . . if not worse.

No police station

D day arrived and with it came the thought “what will the wicked witch do?”. The problem is that the majority of the time, she is totally unpredictable. She could either turn up and then just leave, or she could go to the police, or she may just not even turn up! We sent her an e-mail and a text message a few days ago asking her when she was going to collect Yain on the 1^st January to see if she had accepted that it would be that way or not. She didn’t reply. To either one.

So anyway, we wake up on the 31^st, I honestly have not slept so well as I have a million images in my head about what may take place today. One of those images involves us having coffee with the police whilst trying to explain the situation and the other is a slightly more violent image involving me and the wicked witch. Don’t worry, I am not a violent person, so that image will always just remain in my head, not so sure about the other image though!

 Xavi decides he just wants to find out what is going on, so he phones her. She doesn’t pick up the phone, but a few minutes later she sends a text saying “What do you want?” So he phones her again. She puts on her victim voice. She always has to play the victim, the way she answers the phone, the way she walks, the way she stands by the car waiting for us to bring Yain over. She is so strong and harsh in her e-mails and her text messages, but such a victim in person. I think one would call her a COWARD!

So anyway, xavi phones her and she is like ‘what do you want?’

 ‘To find out what time you are coming to pick up Yaincoa’

‘Oh, whenever is good for you’

WHAT?

SERIOSULY?

A few days ago she is threatening to go to the police if we don’t give her Yaincoa on the morning of the 31^st, and now suddenly she is all like ‘Whatever is best for you’???????????? I am telling you that she does have some serious kind of personality disorder or she just does this to screw with us! It really makes us feel like we are going insane.

image taken from www.awbfam.blogspot.com

New Years Eve at the Police Station?

So tomorrow is D day. Will the police show up at the flat or not?

For those of you who don’t know the story, it goes a little something like this: Yaincoa’s mother, wicked witch, is evil. Sorry, but it is the truth. I dislike her intensely and no, it is not one of those jealousy or intimidation issues or any other Freudian issue, she is a horrible person and although I have done what I can to try to make the relationship between all of us amicable, but it is impossible with this woman!

Yaincoa is currently in his Christmas vacations. We have shared custody with the wicked witch and according to the papers, we get yaincoa for the first half of the vacations and she gets him for the second half. Up until this point, everybody is in agreement. His holiday are from the 23^rd December to the 9^th January, both days included. This makes 18 days. Half of 18 is 9 isn’t it? Now by my calculations that means 9 days with us means that she should come and collect yaincoa on the morning of the 1^st January to start her 9 days. However that is where everything has fallen apart. Wicked witch appears to believe that she should be collecting her son on the morning of the 31^st. She wants him for New Years Eve. I may hear some of you going “Oh, but she simply wants to be with her son to celebrate the New Year, that’s sweet”.

Let me choke away my vomit and explain to you the fiasco of last year:

There is a bar/restaurant in the marina where wicked witch works. It is an open plan place where smoking is allowing. Yaincoa, was 7 years old last year, he has asthma and chronic bronchitis. So last year wicked with takes him to a party in this bar/restaurant filled with smokers where they remain ‘partying’ until 5am. Thereafter they slept in some boat for 3 hours and then mommy drove them the 18km ride along the highway home. Very nice and responsible huh?

Wicked witch wants Yaincoa this year because quite frankly she is not much without her son and because that way she doesn’t have to get up early on New Year’s Day and come and fetch him. We have informed her several times and very clearly that he will be with us on New Year’s Eve. Her last response was that if we don’t give her Yaincoa on the 31^st, she will go directly to the police station to put a report against Xavi, and refuses to reply to any further messages asking what time she will be here to collect her son on the 1^st January. She does not ask herself why we are so sure about what we are saying as she is so used to threatening xavi and having him back down for the benefit of Yaincoa and out of fear about what she may do. Not this year. She also does not think how it could be for Yaincoa if his mother comes to the flat trying to get her son, and the possible confrontation of us then saying No. How would a little 8 year old boy feel about that happening and seeing mommy and daddy fighting about who is to go with? Is she capable of coming to the flat and making a scene despite how it could affect her son? Damn right she is!

This has put us in a bit of a pickle. We have had to go to see our lawyers and get clarification on this. It is a slightly grey area, however we have been assured that we are right. We have had to go to the school and asked for a signed certificate stating the days of Christmas holiday this year, and we have had to leave yaincoa with his grandparents until tomorrow afternoon, therefore affecting our plans and things we wanted to do with him to ensure that he is not in the flat tomorrow morning just in case she comes around. If she does indeed show up and then goes to report xavi, it may transpire that the police will then turn up at the flat to find out what is going on. Again, do you think she cares about how that will affect her son, seeing the police coming to talk to daddy about why he won’t give his son over? No she doesn’t.

Xavi is worried because he knows the law is blatantly unfair the law is towards fathers, and he knows that when a mother goes into a police station playing the victim and claiming that the father of her child won’t give her child to her, he can imagine the police response. He is understandably worried, but I have told him not to worry, we will deal with it together.

So here we sit and wonder, will the police turn up at the flat tomorrow or not?

Tick tock, tick tock . . . .

The curse of the other mother

Yaincoa’s mother, Wicked Witch S, really is the worst person and mother that I have ever known in my life! The bummer? We are stuck with her in our life like a little irritating yap yap dog for a very, very long time! I know that some people may think that I am only saying this and I only think this because Xavi is my partner and that, shame, surely she has a side to this story as well? No, I am not biased, she is awful as a person and even worse as a mother. Many women may feel that I am a traitor by saying this, but a child is not always better off with the mother, she is a prime example.

Monday of every week is always a hard day in our house. One Monday it is hard because we have dropped Yaincoa off at school and he is not in our flat. The flat is a much quieter place without him. The following Monday is hard because we pick Yaincoa up after a whole week with wicked witch S and he has inevitably taken a few steps backwards in attitude thanks to her. To sum her up, she doesn’t care very much for the well being of her son (although she would of course deny this) and is much more interested in hurting xavi. That is the plain and simple truth. Anyone following this blog will become aware of this.

This week has been a whole bag of surprises with her, a real rollercoaster ride. We only had Yaincoa from Thursday as the first 3 days of the week were holidays and so he had to stay with her. Xavi had missed him a lot and was very excited to see him. But nervous as well because with Yaincoa comes Yaincoa’s school diary, wicked witch’s favourite place to bitch and make low blows about xavi. We are never sure what she will have put this time.

This is how our week has gone:

Monday 29 November: Xavi drops Yain off at school; he has put all his homework in a plastic folder in his bag including his maths homework

Wednesday 01 December: Xavi phones Yaincoa to see how he is. Wicked witch shouts form the background ‘Where is the maths homework’. Xavi explains to Yain that he put it all in his school bag. After the phone call, wicked witch send a sms telling xavi to bring the maths homework to school the next day, xavi explains (again) that he put it all in the bag. She responds that there is no plastic folder in the bag. Well no stupid, Yaincoa has obviously taken the whole folder out at school. We inform her of this once again stating we don’t have the homework, it is either at school or Yain has lost the piece of paper. She continues. Eventually we tell her to stop with the sms’s as we don’t have the maths homework.

Thursday 09 December: So of course this means that when we got yaincoa this week, we were rather nervous about the school book. True to form, she made a comment to the teacher along the lines of “The father said that he put the homework in the school bag. It is not there therefore Yaincoa does not have his maths homework”. I was fuming and I had a good word with Yaincoa for his part in not taking responsibilities for his own homework and for not stating that maybe he had lost it instead of letting his dad take the blame. I was furious!! This is xavi, the father who has been known to iron his son’s homework pages if they have been crumpled, the father who has sat until the early hours making robot costumes for his sons school activity, the same man who just spent all afternoon researching nativity scenes and recycling ideas for Yain’s latest school competition!

The same day, wicked witch has sent Yain to school without a jacket, our jacket. It was hotter than normal that day, but not in the morning before school or the afternoon after school, and he was half sick with a cough again. She has a habit of keeping our clothing and we are fed up with it, so he asks Yaincoa to phone his mom to ask her to drop the jacket off at school the next morning. He phones her and asks her to do this (she works close enough to the school and as she drives everywhere, it is pretty easy for her to do this). She later sends xavi a sms to say that by getting Yain to phone her he is ‘jodiendo la vida de mi hijo’, basically screwing up the life of her son. Yeah ok, because xavi is the one who sent the sick son to school without a jacket!!

Friday 10 December: wicked witch sends a sms to xavi around 10am to say that she is stuck in traffic and can’t bring the jacket to school and then calls him Filthy Scum! Filthy Scum? A father wants his jacket back so his son can keep warm as we don’t have another one, and her well educated response is to call him filthy scum. Again, fuming! We send an email requesting the jacket and also detailing the days each has with Yain during Christmas holiday. The papers state half time with each parent and this year xavi gets first half. By my calculations this means that we have Yain until the morning of the first of January and she has him from then. We also ask her to stop with the insults

Saturday 11 December: she responds to the email to say that to start with xavi is a compulsive liar who has nothing to say but lie (due to the fact that he said it is cold and Yain needs the jacket. Um we are in winter, generally the cold season you moron) she then continues to say that she is not insulting him, what she says about him is reality not insults. This is followed by the fact that she agrees with the holidays and she will collect him on the 31^st, even though we have clearly stated that she has him from the 1^st Jan. This doesn’t seem to interest her much as this would mean that new year’s day, in the morning, she would have to come and fetch her son, hangover and all. For us no problem, we have a newborn and I am breastfeeding, I don’t think we will exactly be partying hard this new years!
(Background info: last year yaincoa was with the wicked witch for New Years Eve. Turns out that they went to a bar/restaurant in the marina where she works and they celebrated there. Yaincoa (who was 7 years old at the time) was awake and running riot until 5am, in a smoking bar; he is a child with asthma and chronic bronchitis. After that they slept in a boat for 3 hours and then she drove then the 20km journey home (drunk?).

Does this seem normal to anyone??)

Her email finishes off by saying that how xavi wants to do things as the paper says; now everything will be done that way. She says this because in summer instead of splitting vacations half and half, they do continue with the one week with each parent system, just makes more sense when there are 3 months of summer holiday! They also do their weeks from Monday to Monday (one drops him off at school to finish their week, and the other picks him up Monday afternoon to start their week) instead of Sundays at 20:00 as the papers state. Works out better for yaincoa as he doesn’t have to get carted around a Sunday night when he should be at home relaxing, having his dinner, getting ready for bed etc. I am suspicious at that comment, but we choose to ignore the comment and enjoy our weekend.

Sunday 12 December: We have a day planned of monopoly, xavi and Yain finishing off his nativity scene competition for school (I must point out that his mother has never helped him with this), and putting up Christmas decorations. Everyone is in a good mood and the sun is shining. Xavi’s phone tings with a sms. It is her. She says that she will be at the flat at 20:00pm to pick up Yain!!!!!!!!!!! We are left gob smacked and furious. Yes it is her right to collect him then, but she is only doing it to hurt Xavi. She knows that Xavi has only had him for 3 days this week and she is trying to punish him, I suspect she is doing this because she is angry at him about the whole New Years Eve shamble. What she doesn’t realise is that Yain is normally eating dinner around 19:30 with us, after that he gets some time to watch cartoons, and then around 21:00 or so he has to start to get ready for bed. 20:00pm is slap bam in the middle of all of this. For him to now have to be carted around on a freezing Sunday night is ridiculous. It is not so bad in her week, Wicked Witch goes everywhere in her little Audi. Us? We will have to go and get him by metro next week; we have to get the yellow line, then change over to the red line and then a 10 minute walk to his flat. Then we have to do the return journey. I can’t go with xavi as Emmeline will be in bed. By the time they get home, it will be time for Yain to go to bed. That is of course is wicked witch has given him dinner, and we don’t have to quickly prepare something. There is clearly no benefit in this arrangement to yaincoa so why has she suddenly decided on Sunday nights? To screw with xavi. However by doing this, she is actually hurting her son.

It doesn’t end there.

Monday 13 December: Xavi meets yaincoa at school to give him his nativity scene and his school diary. Why did we still have the diary? Well, Yain needs to have x-rays on his teeth to see if he needs braces or not. Wicked Witch has never taken him to the dentist and when we asked her to do this, she replied to Xavi ”this is your thing, you know more about it than me, finish what you started and no, she wasn’t going to make the appointment for the x-rays”. So we have to go and see the dentist in the hospital first and he will order the appointment for the x-rays. The hospital gave us the date of today and 16:20. Great, we can take him as wicked witch is working and we will be finished by 17:00 where we can either take him back to school to meet her, or she can meet us at the hospital as it is easier for her to get home in her Audi from the hospital than it is from school. However, we didn’t want to give her the school book the night before with the note that yaincoa has to leave early for the dentist as we worried that she was capable of removing this note from the book saying Yain wasn’t going. In the middle of the day on Monday we send her an email to say that Yain has the dentist and where should we meet her at 17:00, school or hospital? She sends an sms saying “he is not going to the dentist today, impossible, get an appointment in your week’. We respond with why not? It doesn’t affect her at all as she is at work, you she doesn’t even have to lift a finger. She cockily replies “I will tell you why, he is not going and that is it. Get an appointment in your week and stop annoying me” we respond again with “ok, and if we bring him directly to your flat after the appointment?” that was she really doesn’t have to do anything. Her response? “NO”. We have had to change the appointment and the next available date? 10 January. A delay of a whole month because she is being difficult and is trying to hurt Xavi. What she doesn’t care about is that once again, she is hurting her son in the process.

Tuesday 14 December: The fiasco about the vacations continues. She states she gets him on the 31^st, we state she gets him on the 1^st. apparently her lawyer says she is right, ours say we are right. She threatens to report us to the police if she cannot fetch yaincoa on the 31^st. We tell her to go ahead. The problem is that the holidays are a little grey this year as the last day is Sunday and so we need to double check with our lawyer if normal rules apply for the changeover of yaincoa or not because technically it is still a vacation day. If we are wrong it we kill me to have to say to her that she can indeed have her son on the 31^st knowing full well that he will probably spend another night awake at some ungodly hour in a totally unsuitable venue whilst she is doing god knows what. If we are right then we have to prepare ourselves for the next battle/ What is the next battle? Then one with yaincoa because i am sure that wicked witch will then try to use him to get her way. Something along the lines of “yaincoa, mommy wanted you to be with me, because we are going to this place and your little friend will be there and you can stay up late and have soooo much fun”. Isn’t life supposed to be easier? Aren’t parents supposed to put their children first and not use them as weapons?

Please say tomorrow is a quiet day . . .