Frustrated...

I have been separated from my sons father for 12 almost 13 years now. We never had a court document stating custody. I know this sounds dumb on my part.  I was young and I am sure my parents would have helped me get one  but we always seemed to be able to work things out.  Mostly I believe this always worked for us because he accepted I would be keeping our son and he could see him whenever he wanted to. There has never been a enforcement of child support or anything like it.  Even in the years when he wasn't showing up to pick my son up I was calling his (the ex)  parents and letting them know they could come get him.  They did until he would start getting him again or they just couldn't afford to come out here any more.  The times when he wasn't showing up was a darker time in his life. A time where he only seemed to figure things out when he was living with his parents.  Things changed for him about 4 years ago though and he seemed to get his shit together.  I know he doesn't like my hubby and he hates it when I want to talk with my hubby before I make final plans with him ( my ex) about our son. He feels he is our son not his he has no say. I feel just the opposite.

I am not sure what has happen in the last year but for some reason he (my ex) has gotten down right hateful to me. Any time I have a problem with something and tell him about he flat out tells me he doesn't give a shit what I think.  About 2 months ago he just decided he was going to keep him for an extra day without asking. Just doing it because it was a holiday and why couldn't he?  Did see what he big deal was or why I was mad. His normal time for returning home is anywhere from 1-4 (on the early and late sides)  But regardless he should should have our son home by 6.  After not answering my calls he has his wife text me at 6:30 saying he would be a little late. Well to me it already past a little late so what time are we talking ? around 8:30.  He didn't answer his phone or text me himself because he knew I would be pissed off.  I call that being a chicken shit!  When he finally calls me back he tells me he doesn't care if I think 830 is too late to bring him home he is trying to have a bbq with his family oh and his brother is in the hospital.  Don't get me wrong I am not heartless. I care about his brothers but what does them having a family bbq have to do with his brother in the hospital? Is the bbq at the hospital or something?

Now I am at a cross road and not sure what to do.  I am tired of dealing with him treating me like that and I don't want to worry what time he is going to bring my baby home or if he is planing on doing it on the right day.  But then I know what happen when custody papers were place with his daughter. He just quit seeing her for a long time.  Who does that hurt? not me I would be happy if he would just go away. but it would devastate my son.

Ramblings...about my kids and their school work. I know its boring but I needed to rant.

• My kids are stressing me out! 
• My three oldest ones seem to think they only have to do half of their school work.
• I don't get it.  I know times change but I truly believe that our school systems are going to shit.
• How is it that students can do such crap work and turn stuff in late and the teachers still accept it and grade it.  They have to. It is school policy.
• I will start with my oldest son.  They were given a project to do in Physics.   They were to pick a sport and find 2 kinds of motion used in that sport.  There were several parts to the project. Each listed and described.  They had 4 weeks to complete it. One of the assignments was a journal about how the days lesson pertained to the sport they had chosen.  My son put his off til the very end and only did bits and pieces of the work.  They whole time telling us how cool the project was and how much he enjoyed it.  When he turned in what little he did he ended up with about eight 0's  and a 31 for a test grade ( and average of the daily grades for the project).
• He redid the project but will only be allowed at the most a 70 and on some a 50 due to lateness.  However every part of the assignment he turned in on time he gets to continue to redo until he gets the 70 ( I believe this is part of the no child left behind).  If I were a student that worked hard on my project and turned it in on time I would find this highly offensive.
• The middle older child have several 0's in all of his core classes.  Just enough that he can get them turned in and pass the class. This frustrates me to no end. I had to ground him for a week just to get him to finally figure out what it was that he didn't get turned in. Then he gave his teacher a response for a journal that I wanted to knock his block off for. He not only redid the journal entry but also gave a written and oral apology.  The journal was : If you could invite anyone, dead or alive, to your party, who would it be? Why?  His response: Not you. I wouldn't invite you to my party if you were dead or alive.  and then something about getting detention and not liking him.  What the hell? Really? I didn't raise him to be disrespectful to people.  He thought I would never see it. 
• Not only did he apologize. I was so embarrassed so did I.
• My youngest of the older ones, well he doesn't have near a many 0's. Only a few, however, non of them are his fault.  His teachers just keep losing his papers. He does them and turns them in. He has no idea what is happening to them.  If it was just the one teacher ( who I know throws away papers with no name on them because my oldest son had him) then ok maybe he did them and didn't put his name on them but it is 2 different teachers with this problem. 
• These are just my kids. They are normally and for the most part well behaved children with good manners.  I know I am not the only parent with these problems.
• I feel sorry for the teachers. Like they don't have enough to do with out having to grade late papers and redo papers.  I mean I understand redoing papers in some cases like, you tried really hard, did all the work and turned it in on time but just didn't really understand and need the extra help to explain it but otherwise I think it is just adding to our already over worked teachers.
• I think I like the old days, when you either did the assignment or you didn't. You either passed or you didn't. I think letting kids off the hook and allowing them to turn in late work is teaching them a very bad habit for their adult lives.
• The rules of my house used to be you were grounded if you had late work for however long it took you to turn it in and double it.  If it takes you 3 extra days to get it turned in then you can be grounded for 3 days after it has been turned in. My husband does not like that rule but I do and I think I am going back to it.