Another Week in Review

Clearly, things are a bit overwhelming these days. Blogging has not been my top priority. Here is the week in review:

• I got word that my ex met with the police on Monday. He hired a criminal lawyer. I'm told there won't be criminal charges, but that he has been given an official "warning" about his conduct.
• I spoke with the CAS. My ex was advised by his lawyer not to speak to the CAS without the family lawyer present. That meeting is supposed to happen by early next week. I will get an update from the CAS after that.
• In the meantime, the CAS told me that my ex wants to speak to the children. She told me that she advised him that it would be OK for him to have telephone calls, provided that I am supervising the calls. He is not to question them about what happened, not allowed to talk about anything that could be troubling for them. He can tell them he loves them, tell them he misses them and ask them about school.
• Today (Saturday), my ex called my cell. I chose not to answer it because I cannot supervise a call from my cell. I need to be home where I can either let the children use a speaker phone, or where I can pick up a second extension. When we got home I told the children that their dad had called and asked if they wanted to call him back. They said no. They said he is mean and scary and they don't want to talk to him. This puts me in an awkward position. Legally, if I don't return his call, I don't want him to take the position that I deliberately restricted his contact. Then again, with everything the children have been through, I hardly want to be the one to FORCE a phone call. I'm just going to take the chance. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? Contribute to messing them up even more? No thanks.
• Other than that, I've spent the bulk of the week getting the kids into a routine, trying to give some sense of normalcy. I think they are doing a little better this week than they were last week. Keep your fingers crossed on this one.
• My daughter had a peculiar hair cutting incident this week. She apparently doesn't like tangles in her hair, so she took the scissors on Thursday morning and cut all the tangles out of her hair. Parts ended up ear length, parts ended up mid way down her back. I took her to the hairdresser today, totally afraid that we would have to give her a boy cut. Fortunately, they were able to cut layers and salvage most of it. Thank God for small favors.
• My daugter got her yellow stripe in Tae Kwan Do this week. Small win during stressful times. I was shocked to see her. She is usually so shy and lacks confidence. On Thursday, I saw a girl who was able to do the entire pattern with such strength. The instructor actually spoke to me afterwards and asked what happened. He never sees so much force in her. Her voice was so loud when she was leading the drills. He was shocked. So was I. I'm not sure if it was rage, or just an outlet. But I am SO glad the kids are in martial arts. This has to be good for them.
  
• Next week we have a meeting with the assessor. We will both be there. This should be interesting. I'm not looking forward to it. Not at all. At the end of the day, I am still afraid of my ex. I'm not sure what I'm afraid of. It's like I'm conditioned to be afraid of his temper. It's all very creepy.

That's it for this week. I'll do another update in a couple of days.