One Potato, Two Potato . . .

Hello all. Sorry I’ve been incommunicado recently. Just a lot going on with the mancub. He may or may not be staying here. He may or may not be living with us. He may go to this daycare, that preschool, or have a nanny come into his mom’s home. I’ve been a little frustrated that no one seems interested in nailing down a schedule for this child. One of the great things about my childhood was that I always knew where I was going to be when. It didn’t have anything to do with, “Who’s the least busy today?” so I never had to worry that I was making my parents’ life hell or that I was such a burden that no one wanted me.

I know T-Bone agrees with me but it just seems like the mom doesn’t want to commit to anything, presumably so that she can return to her former pattern of calling us in the middle of the night and saying that 1) the mancub is ill and will probably die before morning if T-Bone doesn’t pay X, only for us to go to the hospital and find a very angry ER doc and a very healthy boy; 2) she is sick or injured or “tired” and wants T-Bone to come pick him up; 3) she’s working late tonight (she’s just learning this now?!) and won’t be there to pick up the mancub until “later,” which always means at least 2:00 in the morning; etc. I know that we are letting madness and stress back into our lives by having the mancub here and it’s not that I don’t want him; it’s just that I’m worried.

So I am insisting that we have to have a written-in-stone schedule: he is with us on Monday, Tuesday and every other weekend, no matter what (barring legitimate illness or incapacitation, of course) or something along those lines. Because seriously, it is hell to be a little kid and not know where you’re going to put your head that night. This morning T-Bone told me that the mancub would be with us “2 or 3 days a week” but I said that wasn’t specific enough. I told him that if we give her rope to hang us with, she will use it. There has to be *no* ambiguity – we’re not playing hot potato here; this is a living breathing kid that is learning whether his world is safe and secure and whether he can trust and rely on the people around him.