Pools, Parties and Other Updates

The pool is done!

I can't tell you how much nicer it is to look out into the backyard and see our lovely new pool instead of the mess displayed in the previous images. Thanks to the unseasonably warm weather the temperature of the water has been in the high 70's F (which is in and around the mid 20's C). Mojo and the hubby took the inaugural dip last weekend. I am waiting for slightly warmer temps, but make no mistake, the fact that I looked better in my swim suit when I was pregnant than I do now, will not stop me from putting it on and getting into that zillion dollar pool!

Speaking of the pool, here's the update on Mojo's 7th birthday party: She caved. Mojo's mum looked into doing the pool party at her local swimming pool and discovered that the cost was prohibitive and as such, if Mojo wanted her pool party it would have to be at Dad's house. So the Harpy finally came around and told her 6 year old that it was okay that she wasn't going to the party at Daddy's house because they were going to have another party with Mum (something she should have done right from the start, of course, but naturally she doesn't give a crap about how bad her kid feels as long as she makes the hubby look bad).

The Harpy decided that it would be alright for Mojo to have her party here but that certain of her friends could not be invited, namely the ones that she babysits because "they are like family." What a load of hooey. I'm not sure what she would have done if we had decided to invite them anyway, but we chose not to create more tension.

Despite our best efforts of course, tension was still created when we tried to send out birthday invitations to 3 (yes, just 3!) of Mojo's classmates at school. I made some lovely invitations and sent her to school with the instruction of handing them out to her friends. Since her birthday isn't until August, I also took the precaution of sending an evite to the parents of the kids in the event that the invitations got lost over the summer.

The Harpy didn't know this and to make a long story short, called and said that she refused to hand out the invitations to the parents of the 3 kids that Mojo chose because: 1) she didn't know one of the kids that she had invited, she didn't know why she had invited that kid and she didn't think it was appropriate for that kid to be invited; 2) some of the kids that she thought should be invited weren't and she didn't want to hand out invitations to other kids in front of those children's mothers; 3) we should make it a priority to know that handing out invitations in class is not done at this school for fear of hurting the feelings of other children who are not invited and that if we thought we could do this party by ourselves then we should learn how to do things properly.

We of course, let her know that it didn't really matter what she thought about who was invited to our house because it's our house. Nor did it matter that she would not (or would not let Mojo) hand out the invitations that we had prepared because invitations had already been sent out via email (a means of communication which she hates because she doesn't understand it and can't control it- she doesn't even have a computer). We certainly would not be uninviting a child because she claimed that Mojo wasn't even friends with her -- since when do we encourage the clique mentality by the way?

Anyway, the short of it is, all of my hard work at preparing those lovely invitations was for naught and now I need to print a retraction in my evites because I told the parents to look out for the invitations at school. I hate that ignorant cow.

(Incidentally, for Tanya, here's the link to the wikipedia definition for Harpy - though there are many variations, a Harpy is a mythological figure which steals things which are not it's own and sometimes whisks souls off to hell...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpy )

In happier party news, my friend Stephanie celebrated her 33rd birthday this month. We went out for drinks and a viewing of Sex and the City. It was awesome! It was so nice to be out with my friends -- drinking no less! (and I do mean no less -- I got HAMMERED). The movie was also totally enjoyable -- for any who have not seen it yet (or am I the only one living under a rock?) it's definitely worth the price of admission

The next party up for planning will be the Chimp's christening. Those who know me will be wondering why I am even partaking in this sort of ritual -- all I can say is, parenthood changes you in ways you never expect and well, I guess it probably couldn't hurt. More to come on what is sure to be a total debacle...!!

Selfish, Immature Step-Mother? So What?!

This summer Mojo will be 7 years old. Seven! I can hardly believe it, but as they say, time waits for no one. She has decided that she would like to have a pool party at our house this year and we have agreed to allow her to invite 4 or 5 of her friends for a frolic in the pool to celebrate her birth.

It occurred to me the other day that the child might also expect or desire her mother's attendance at this event and I mentioned it to the hubby. Now, I realize that we are supposed to do things that are in Mojo's best interest, like pretending that I don't hate that woman more than sin, but there are some things I am unwilling to do. Having the Harpy in my home or even in my backyard is one of them. I told this to the hubby and he agreed. He suggested that he would mention this to the Harpy as a pre-emptive move to avoid any surprises or conflicts.

So much for that. I'm calling it right now, this is the beginning of a conflict. The conversation went something like this:

Hubby: So we've decided that we're only going to have 4 or 5 kids for this pool party. You know, we don't want to have more than we can keep an eye on. We'll probably have some help from my brother- and sister-in-law.

Harpy: I assume I can come right?

Hubby: Ah, no.

Harpy: Why not?

Hubby: Well, we're just not comfortable with that. You know if we were having the party some place else, on more neutral ground that would be different, but this is our home.

Harpy: Lame complaints about last year's birthday party which did not take place at her home.

Hubby: Reiterating that it's not the same because this is our home.

Harpy: Well, then maybe we should have it at a public pool instead.

Hubby: I guess you'll have to ask Mojo about that.

Fast forward to just right now as I'm writing this post and...yes... there is the phone call from my step-daughter explaining that if we aren't going to invite her mother to the party at our house then she doesn't want to have the party here.

I suppose this is the part where I'm supposed to feel guilty or something because I am unable to take the high road here and put my ill feelings aside for the benefit of a 7 year old girl.

WELL I DON'T.

I don't feel sorry even one little bit. Call me selfish, call me immature. Call me whatever you want, but I am not sorry and will not be sorry that that "woman" is not welcome in my house.

It's not only that she did unforgivable things to my husband and made a simple situation far worse than necessary during the divorce, but that she makes my skin crawl. The sight of her makes me physically ill. Often I still have a physical reaction to her being on the phone. I am NOT exaggerating. I cannot physically be around this woman. If that makes me a terrible step-mother then so be it.

I'm sure it's not the first time Mojo has been disappointed by her parents and I know it won't be the last.

Money Pit Continued...

I didn't mean to nag, but I was starting to get concerned about the giant pool of standing water in my backyard, so I called the pool guys yesterday to find out what the heck was going on. They told me that they were expecting the liner to be delivered to them this week and that they would be out to our place on Thursday to do the work. But to my surprise the lovely people from Bremner Pool & Spa showed up today to drain and remove the liner and coping from the pool. They used a giant pipe to drain the remaining water from the pool and it took the better part of a half hour.

It was on observing this that I realized that it was going to take a week for us to fill that sucker back up when the work was finally done. I am hoping that that will be some time this week.

P.S. The reason why the people at Bremner are so lovely to me is because when we first got the house we used these crazy dudes whose brochure we found laying around the house. They were totally unreliable and I'm pretty sure stoned every time we saw them. We were so thrilled when we discovered Bremner. If you've got a pool they really are lovely -- reliable, timely, knowledgable and friendly. I can't even tell you how many times they've worked through the pouring rain in our backyard! It's so refreshing for people in the service industry to so totally not suck.