Real Mother

We had another lovely encounter with Tai's ex-wife last night. Well, Tai did, anyway. I sat by and read the IM over his shoulder. Earlier in the week, she told us that her home phone was operational again, so we should use that number to reach her on Sundays when we call so the kids can speak with her. We tried that number on eight different occasions yesterday. No answer. She was very upset that we hadn't tried the cell phone number instead. Keep in mind, we had that 2nd phone number, but we did not realize it was a cell phone number. It was just the alternate we were supposed to use when the home phone was shut off. As far as we knew, it could have been a friend's phone that we were calling - maybe she sat around someone else's house on Sunday afternoons waiting for us to make the call. But it mattered not to her that we tried calling eight times. We were still the bad guys. There's just no winning.

She also complained that we were teaching her kids that I was their "real mother". We do no such thing, of course. But P told her last weekend, when he spoke to her, that I was his "real mom" and she was his "other mom." I would love to have a discussion with her face to face about the term "real mother". But I'm not that ballsy, and I'm not that stupid; there is no need to argue with the woman anymore. We have the kids, and they're safe. That is the only thing that matters. She just underestimates the intelligence and intuition of her kids. She is confusing "real" with "biological" - something that P has all figured out. P knows what a "real mother" is supposed to do, and how a "real mother" is supposed to behave. He has told me before that, "I grew in her belly, but you're my real mom." God I love this kid!

I'm very careful about not letting my feelings toward their biological mom come into play while I'm around the kids. They have no idea how angry I am with her for the way she has treated them. They have no idea how it makes me want to cry when I think about the conditions she was "raising" them in. It's important to me that they form their own opinions about her. It won't do anyone any good if I influence them in that regard - they'll just end up resenting me for it. But in my heart of hearts, I think I would be very glad if one day very soon, she wrapped her car around a tree.

One last thought. I looked up the word mother in the dictionary, and discovered a definition I hadn't seen before:

moth·er
n.
A stringy slime composed of yeast cells and bacteria that forms on the surface of fermenting liquids and is added to wine or cider to start the production of vinegar.

Maybe she is their "real mother" after all.