Sorry to be a blog hog this afternoon, but I really just am going crazy and need to get all of these ick feelings out with the hope that they will just drain away.

SS7 just completely shattered my heart into a million billion tiny little pieces. I heard him making noise in the kitchen/pantry, so I went in there to see what he was doing. I find him with a little bag of mini oreos (why are freaking oreos just a staple in my cabinet? maybe I should look in to this.) open and eating them. Okay, fine. No big deal. Except that I then find his plate of lunch still sitting on the counter, barely half eaten, and just left out and not cleaned up (that I can look past, he's 7 and sometimes needs reminding to clean up after himself. He's not a fully programmed robot yet :).) Anyway, so I ask him, um what are you doing? He replies that he's getting a snack because he's hungry. Okay, fair enough. Except that he knows the rule is, unless otherwise told you cannot have snack/dessert unless you finish your meal. If you're hungry enough for junk, you're hungry enough to finish your meal. I then tell him that he can have some oreos if he finishes his sandwich. I take the oreos, put them on the counter and he sits down at the table to finish his sandwich. No sooner than I walk into the other room to let my dogs outside, do I hear the damn oreo bag crinkling again!! He was eating the damn oreos!!! ACK!

Okay, so no this is a typical I'm going to push the envelope thing. Any other day I know I would've just taken the oreos, taken the sandwich, and told him to go to his room for disobeying me. But no. Today I am a nervous wreck, anxious beyond belief, exhausted, and just a wreck on the inside so instead...I grab the bag of oreos and essentially freak out on him. I told him that I can not take him disobeying me anymore. That I don't care if he eats oreos and doesn't eat what I make. From now I won't make him anything and he can just eat whatever is premade in the fridge (ie junk) and that I'm tired of fighting so hard for a kid that couldn't give a shit about me. That I know he knows court is Monday and I can't take him pushing every boundary so that I can give him something to run to his mother's house tomorrow evening and tell her.

Yes. I was 100% in the wrong. Absolutely. I don't need to be burned at the freaking stake for it. I was awful. I felt terrible afterwards. I KNOW I shouldn't have done it. Right now, I am no better than BM. I hate that feeling. I hate that I'm letting myself become overwhelmed and consumed with all of this. Anyway, I walk away go into my bedroom and just collapse on the bed crying. I then remember that I told SD6 to go upstairs while I was losing it on SS7 and she's freaking nosey. So I walk out and see SS7 sitting at the table crying. Legitimately like, sorrowful crying. I looked at him and for the first time in a long time I saw him for what he really is. A very sad, very scared little boy. He knows more than he should because BM tells him when court is, that we're trying to take them away from her. That they can only have one mom and if they pick me that means they can't love her anymore. It's sick. Sick sick sick sick sick.

So I look at him and I ask him, SS7, why are you crying? And he looks up from the table at me with these big brown swollen red eyes, and just tries to catch his breath. I ask him again, honey, what's wrong? He then looks at me and through tears says "I don't know why my life has to be so hard". In that moment I grabbed him up and gave him the biggest hug and I was crying too. I told him that I was sorry for yelling at him, that it's frustrating when he doesn't listen to me but that I shouldn't have said what I did and that his dad and I were doing our best to make sure that he life didn't have to be so hard anymore. I told him that we loved him, that he has a lot of people that love him and that he's very lucky. That that was all he needed to worry about. That he needed to leave the hard stuff to the adults because we're more capable of handling the hard stuff and that nothing that he did or said was going to change the outcome of everything anyway.

This breaks my heart. For the first time in a long time it really put things in perspective for me. The skids and I used to get along. He loved each other. A lot. Until this whole custody thing became an issue and I fed right on into all the PAS and bullshit and I too let myself forget what this was really about. I have been bitter toward them for a long time now. I am sure that while I try to hide it and I still do all the things I used to, that they can tell there's a shift in mood and demeanor. I'm sure they can tell that I do it, but that I do it with spite and bitterness in my veins. I feel terrible that I too have contributed while trying my damnedest to never say anything that might even be construed as negative toward or about their mother. This kills me.

He told me that he loved me too, and the he was sorry for being bad. He said that he's scared because he doesn't know where he's going to live and he is worried that his mom isn't going to love him anymore if she thinks that he likes me. But that he does love me and he wants me to start doing his homework with him again.

We HAVE to win on Monday. We HAVE to be able to put these children in counseling that BM doesn't have to be notified about so that she can not sabotage their appointments by making them about her. We HAVE to be able to ensure that these poor children, even if she does go into complete psycho crazy BM mode overdrive if we do get favorable results on Monday, we have to ensure that these children have someone that they feel safe to talk to and that can assure them that this isn't their fault and that they really don't have to choose. While I can speak the words to them all day long, I really just don't feel like they "get" it because I can see in their eyes they take everything I tell them with a grain of salt and somehow are running it in their head about how I could be doing this to sabotage their mother. This is worse than I even thought. I can't believe I was so stupid and didn't realize it sooner though. I've become more numb to everything than I thought I had.

I so badly want to just call her and scream and her and hand the phone over to her crying son and have him tell her what he just told me. I really do. But I know that won't do anything but bad...I believe someone's signature line on here is so appropriate right now. Taking the high road gives me a nosebleed, or something to that effect. You get it. Ugh.