Vent of the day!

I have truly been trying to support my husband in his quest for an independent and financially secure company. I have not bitched about the gazillion hours he spends on the computer and on the phone. I have helped him in the organization of his trips, because he seems completely unable to organize them himself, nor does he delegate this task to his administrative assistant (in his defense, the admin has only just begun, so really need to give her a little time to acclimate herself, but on the offensive side, he doesn't even ask because he assumes that she will be too overloaded to handle it!). When his trip exceeds a few days, I even pack his bags for goodness sakes. But, I am feeling strangely left out. I mean, he has been asking a friend to help him prepare some Direct Import stuff, even though he originally asked me AND I have offered, on various occasions to help. He has been excluding me, he says, intentionally, so that one of us had a little more freedom to spend with our kids. Why does this piss me off so much!

I guess I feel like I just got a pat on the head. Do you know what I mean? My salary and bonus equal almost six figures, plus I get a car and benefits, so why do I feel like I have just been told that I shouldn't bother my pretty little head over his business stuff. Does he not get it? I mean, I am a pretty sharp person and I could probably help him a lot, without necessarily having to give up all of my free time. But, instead, he asks his friend for help and offers to give this friend a percentage of whatever! I am pretty upset right now, in case you couldn't tell.

Then there's Charlotte, who swore to us that everything was going fine at school. She promised us that there were no issues before going to France in February. She wrote letters, sent emails and basically pledged that she was telling the truth. Then what happened? While I was in France with the three kids, we got a letter at home that told us that Charlotte had two E's, a D and a C- in her four core subjects. How are we supposed to react to that?

At parent teacher conferences, I made Jean-Jacques and Charlotte go because frankly, I am embarassed, and I am tired of getting lectured on Charlotte's behaviour when she is the only one who can change. So, they went. All of the teachers spoke to Charlotte directly and told her that she had to step up to the plate. She has managed to increase her grades so that there is only one D+ and the rest are C's, but for the love of God, why does she have to scrap the bottom of the barrel before she works.

Yesterday she comes home with her planner and she tells us that she has forgotten to have it signed by her first hour teacher (English). Jack doesn't check the planner, we take her word for it and ask her to write to her teacher to get the planner signed retro-actively. Charlotte actually writes the email and copies me and her father. You know what, the teacher writes us back to tell us that Charlotte is lying. The planner was signed yesterday and there was a note with it that told us that she had not turned in a homework assignment and had only until today to turn it in before she got a big fat ZERO. Now, how can Charlotte be so stupid as to send out the email? Did she really think that the teacher was going to let her slide - her, this brilliant, straight A student!! Ofcourse not, Charlotte is a slacker and tries to skate by on doing only the bare minimum, the teacher is NOT going to let her get away with anything.

You want the icing? The teacher did not send an email to me, she sent it to Jean-Jacques. JJ did not forward me the email, he just called me to warn me so that I could calm down before I confronted our daughter. Why am I supposed to calm down? Why can't I yell and scream? I certainly would not tolerate this kind of behaviour from anyone else. I would cease to socialize with my friends or even siblings if they continually lied to me and tried to make me out for some type of idiot, so why do I have to not only accept this type of behaviour from Charlotte, but I have to accept it calmly!

Comments, criticism, but mostly prayers and pills welcome!