09.10.07 - 8:18 am

today will be ashtons first day at preschool.

the sky is clear, the sun is out, a comfortable 60 degrees.

ill be in newberg before it starts, early enough to take some pictures of the event, to receive some glares from sarah and send the boy off to his first structured educational establishment. the cozy cottage preschool.

hes going to thoroughly enjoy it there. children. a sandbox with plastic insects. painting. songs. counting. and most importantly, children his age. boys and girls he can talk to and interact with, learn from and socialize to.

i will be driving twice the distance sarah will be in order to keep ashton enrolled here. some twenty miles and 30 to 40 minutes of drive time. one way.

i sent sarah information on schools close to me on july 9th. she disregarded it all. miraculously she agreed to compromise, and enroll him in a school in tualatin: 20 minutes of driving for each of us. but then, as expected, she changed her mind and changed the location to her favor.

sherwood. where shes moving. big surprise there. but sherwood was full, so she enrolled him in newberg. deep newberg.

she made it as inconvenient as possible without consultation. without consideration. she claims she did it only for ashtons sake, that this was the best school she found. she looked at schools between sherwood and se portland, and this particular school was the best. i dont buy it. she was lazy. she was rushed. sarah just enrolled him last week. she wanted the school close to her house. obviously.

and while my parents tell me im not putting my foot down, sarah is doing a fantastic job of being the most unpleasant person to have to interact with. the claim she keeps emphasizing is how uninvolved i was for the first part of ashtons life. and how i just cant come back into ashtons life now and act like a father.

as if ive been absent for the last four years.

its heartbreaking. frustrating. blood boiling.

its interesting to actually feel the amount of hope for a pleasant future dissolving.