Our Island Family Life

The major stress of the day was dealing with Sofie and Cade when they came home from seeing their dad. They went to see him Friday and came back on the noon boat. Sean has said he can't get time off before 3pm for a while now so he can't get the kids on Friday any earlier. Which is why he isn't coming to Cade's therapy. For some reason he asked to get them at 2pm. I was fine with that. I could get the 2:45 ferry home for a change. I had done a bunch of shopping for the party and it was a big help to get home early. On Saturday I got them and we went straight to the hall for a play practice. Cade was really grumpy. Sofie was tired. They did ok but people could tell Cade was on a tight leash with his patience. When we got home I tried a dress on Sofie and she was crying and cranky. I put her down for a nap and it made a world of difference. She slept almost three hours and would have slept longer but I had to get her up for the party. Cade on the other hand seemed to decompress by telling me and my friend about his horrible morning. On Friday things started out well. Their dad asked him where he wanted to go and he said the mall. So Sean took them there and got Sofie's picture taken with Santa. Then they ate at the food court and Cade saw a friend from another island and he went to talk with him for a bit. After that they checked out the arcade. Cade said it was a rip off. The prizes were smaller for even more tickets than before. Still, this was all good and I was happy to hear Sean was spending one on one time with just his own kids for a change. Then things went downhill. They got back to the house and Sean then left them with his sisters and went out with "the wife" for a date. It was supposed to be a birthday thing for her. Even though her birthday is today, Sunday and he doesn't have the kids today. It would make more sense for them to do something on her actual birthday when he wouldn't have to sacrifice time with the kids. I guess for HER he can take time off work. Cade didn't mind much though because even though his dad was gone at least she was too. He got to see his aunts and he liked that. One of them brought him some candy. That was a mistake I guess. Since he doesn't see her often I personally wouldn't have had a problem with it. The next morning they had to be on the 10am boat for home. While Sean was getting Sofie cleaned up (which is also a good thing and rare for him to do) Cade was getting his stuff in one place to bring home and that included his candy. "The mean witch" walks into his room (without knocking) and said, "Are you eating candy?" He said no. Then I guess she lost it and thought he was lying to her an began yelling at him. She was telling him that he hadn't even had breakfast yet and here he was eating candy. He may not have rules on the island but he does there. I was a bad example obviously if he was eating candy in the morning. That made him mad and he said I wasn't a bad example and I gave him a lot of rules. He told her she must be able to hear him because he had already told her he wasn't eating any candy. She left and complained to Sean so then he came in and told Cade he had to apologize to her because Cade had been rude and lied to her. Cade was of course angry again and told his dad how she had been bad mouthing me. Sean conceded that she may have over reacted. Really? Cade was just mad that yet again his dad was taking this woman's side over his. Didn't even ask him what he was doing, and was asking to him say sorry to the person who had just jumped to conclusions, yelled at him and put down his mother. Yeah. Not the best idea. I guess she doesn't see she is digging her own grave with the kids when she does stuff like that. Sean is then digging his own right beside her when he takes her side over his own kids. I wondered why he even bothered to take them at all. He could have just had them for a nice afternoon then I could have taken them home myself on Friday. If he wasn't even going to see them the rest of Friday night anyway then be fighting all morning long..what's the point? The kids need their father argument is pretty lame for this one. Anyway, Cade seemed to feel a lot better after he vented. I think because our friend was here it kept him from crying. He was very mad though. His language is getting too rough for my tastes and even though he isn't swearing I know he is thinking it and doesn't because he knows I don't want him to. He did say he flipped her off after she left his room. I wasn't too happy about that either. This "expression" of his anger and frustration will be a topic for therapy I think. I am beginning to need to take notes.