Well, I am completely depressed... sigh... it happened. To be honest I was really hoping it wouldn't this year. Amanda almost had me convinced that it wouldn't, but it did. I suppose I should get my accountability out of the way before I tell you all about it.

I weigh 301 this week. I'm happy about that, five more pounds and I hit my goal weight for June. This diet and exercise thing is really working for me.. lol.. who would have thought it? I haven't fallen off the wagon, have eased off on the workouts though cause it's killing me. I realized I don't have to do 4 miles every day, I'm not in the military.. LOL.. but I am doing them consistently.. some kind of exercise every day and at least 3 miles every other day.

Now on to the latest catastrophe in my life. That damn Penny called on Sunday (I think). Amanda, May, and my Grandma were here when it happened. For those of you who don't know who Penny is, she's this ex of Patrick's from like 6 years ago. He saw her off and on when he was still living in Indiana. 2 1/2-3 years ago, she ran into Patrick's mother in walmart or a grocery store or something and asked for our phone number. Patrick's mother gave it to her, she had no idea that they'd ever gone out and just thought she was a friend. Patrick has had alot of women friends. The best man at our wedding was a girl named Heather. LOL. So can't really blame Zandra.. she didn't know... Well, anyway, at this time Patrick was still drinking and we were fighting like cats and dogs. Penny was trying to convince Patrick to leave me and come back to her in Indiana. He told me about it later, and I made him call her and tell her it wasn't happening. As a matter of fact I got into a screaming match with her on the phone. Fast forward to last October, Amanda was here then too.. LOL... and Penny calls again. I cuss her out on the phone and tell her not to call anymore. I refuse to let her talk to Patrick at all (He was at work anyway, that day..*grin*). So she calls Patricks mother and leaves a message asking her to call her back if Patrick's mom thinks there's a chance that she could get Patrick back. His mom does not call back. LOL. Then she calls Sunday. Uggghhh.. I never recognize who she is at first, when I talk to her. She tells me she's calling in regards to one of Patrick's children. He has a 17 year old son and once there was a girl who told him that her daughter could be his, so I ask which one. She says his son. Well, it didn't take me but a minute to realize it wasn't Christine calling about Austin. So I ask her how old and she tells me five years.. so you know I breathed a sigh of relief because for just like a second I had the horrible fear in the pit of  my stomach. I said he doesn't know about this... She says no, that she told him it wasn't his. I said why didn't you tell him? She says he was leaving... then it dawns on me who she is... she then tells me I never let her talk to him... and I say, you know why, Penny. And she tells me now I know why she was trying to get him to come back. Ok, I don't care how bad of Karma it is... I am married to him with 2 kids, she doesn't mean jack to me and I can't stand her. I am civil to her on the phone, for once though. I warn her that Patrick will want to be involved in his kid's life (exactly what she is counting on) and that she'd better be telling the truth. I tell her she can call back the next day and talk to him in the morning. After about an hour she calls again wanting to talk to him that night cause her son will be up the next day and she doesn't want him to hear. The whole reason why she's doing this, she says, is because kid is asking questions. I say ok...

I pick Patrick up at work that night and you should have seen his face when I told him.. he looked like a bomb had been dropped on him... he was like... she told me that it was that guy who lived next door... I say that's not what she's saying now... so we go to walmart and finish maxing out our walmart credit card buying a speaker phone and a voice activated tape recorder. We set it all up at the dining room table and wait for her to call. We came up with a big list of questions to ask her.. etc.

Turns out the timing is right for it to be his... he thinks there is a distinct possibility. She says she didn't tell him before now cause he pissed her off when he left. She spent the entire convo talking herself in circles. She kept saying so what are we going to do... Patrick says he wants to be involved in his kids life, you know... start with letters, email, phone calls, pictures, and sometime this summer we can go up there to visit and he can meet him.. she says no to all of that... she keeps saying she doesn't want her son to have a part time dad. Patrick keeps saying that an absent dad is better than no dad at all... he keeps telling her he isn't coming back to Indiana ( I silently listen to all of this... and I manage to not scream once!). Finally, after 3 hours Penny is pissed. She says if it were her she'd be on the next flight to Indiana. Patrick says he can't do that, the best he can do is Memorial Day weekend and Fourth of July weekend. This makes her mad and she says well then Patrick can just go back to his perfect wife and life. LOL. He says no, if it's his kid he wants to be involved. He's already had one son, where he was cut out of the kid's life and he doesn't want that again. He warns her that the kid will hate her for it. Tells her the story of my mom and grandma. She finally agrees to tell the kid that Patrick is a friend and let Bradley talk to him on the phone the next time she calls. She refuses to give her address or phone number... she used call blocker so we couldn't star 69 her. Everything is listed in someone else's name so we can't find her. And she has a conniption fit cause Patrick's mother knows about this. She doesn't want anyone in Muncie to know. Apparently no one knows that Patrick is supposedly the kid's father. She also says she doesn't want child support.

She calls the next day, for the phone call with Bradley (who is five btw). Only she talks to Patrick for like 10 minutes and spends another ten trying to get Bradley to talk. It doesn't work. He's five. Jeez.

Ok so I talked to my mom about this. My mom is the most suspicious woman on the planet. She thinks that the other guy is paying child support for this kid and that's why she doesn't want anyone to know about this. She also thinks that Penny is probably lying and it's just another way to get to Patrick. I want a DNA test. Dunno how to accomplish that considering that Penni is impossible to find without paying the 70 bucks it will take to do a professional search. Which I don't have right now... not till November, anyway. We'll have money for DNA testing, trying to get visitation all of that when we have student loan money but not before... sigh... She has all the control in this stitch, right now. She controls the contact, she makes the phone calls, and she's the only one who knows the truth. If Patrick makes any kid of noice about not believing her she threatens to cut him out. Gotta have parental permission without a court order for DNA testing.

Needless to say, I'm really upset. Out of all the chicks in Patrick's illustrious past, why did it have to be this one? The only one that I would love to make a voodoo doll of and poke a thousand pins in. God. Oh and she picked this week to do it, of all weeks. I know it sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself, and maybe I am. But dammit, I just want one birthday where nothing bad happens. I don't even want anything good to happen... just nothing bad. I cried all day Monday. Went to see Mom on Tuesday, and now I'm just numb.

My gut feeling tells me that this is his kid, that I"m gonna have to deal with this chick for the rest of my married life. Cause that's Karma. That's what I get for my sordid youth. There is balance in all things, and I'm getting my come uppance for having an affair with a married man when I was young. Karma will get you.

Patrick doesnt' understand why I'm so upset over this. He's like, I'm not leaving you, not going back to her, I love you and my life. He doesn't get it. I'm not worried about that, not really. I just feel like I'm being attacked. It's like being at the Alamo and being attacked from all sides. You know? She keeps coming at me, with something new every time. She won't give up. She doesn't want a father for her kid, she wants my husband. She told him so as a matter of fact.. god you know I had to bite my lips not to yell something at that point. She called me his controlling wife.. lol.. had to laugh at that... any woman would be controlling about letting her man talk to some chick who keeps trying to get him to leave her.

You know, I have no problem with my kids having another sibling. I really don't. A kid can't help who it's parents are. I don't have a problem with Patrick having a relationship with this child.. It's all the stipulations that Penni is trying to put on it... She wants Patrick to come visit him alone, no me, no grandparents, and no Dayanera and Maverick. I can even see that maybe the first or second time. But by God it won't be anywhere but a public place and I'd like to know how Patrick is going to get there? I gotta drive him everywhere, or someone does. I realize that she's lied to the kid all this time about his father (maybe, she says she has anyway.. she said she gave some random name). So springing a step mom and two more sibs on him is alot for a little kid to handle. Patrick told her eventually the kid was gonna have to know. Penni near panicked at that.

God, I'm so depressed about this, it's unreal. Patrick is handling alot better than I would. He's sort of resigned. I feel like I sound self absorbed and maybe that's true. I mean here he is, just had a kid dropped on him out of the blue. But I'm all depressed cause I feel like I'm being attacked the one week of the year I can't handle it. Am I being self absorbed? Is it wrong to be all depressed about this happening the week of my birthday? It's just that something bad always happens this week.. The whole week of my birthday and mother's day is always so bad. I'm always so disappointed. I never have time to worry about getting another year older, I'm always wrapped up in the latest crisis that week. I guess I sort of feel like the Universe is telling me, "You don't matter, there is no celebrating your birth." Ok, yea, I do sound bad. I'm sitting here bawling about it... sigh... I am feeling sorry for myself, I just can't help it... I wish that something good would happen, just once. One time and I'd be happy. One time without some kind of crisis, no fighting, no legal bomb dropped in my lap, no cancer ridden uncles, no ex girlfriends with baby bombs, nobody goes to prison, no kind of crisis at all.

My Granny sent me a poem once about children and the days of the week. sigh... Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.
guess which day I was born on? Yup, you guessed it, a Wednesday.... As a matter of fact, I've gotten suspicious about it... I made sure Maverick was going to be born on a Tuesday. Dayanera was born on a Sunday. Ok, I'm going to stop now... sigh... This isn't helping any.

Blessings,

Em