Barely Keeping Up

Today is my wife's birthday. Birthdays for the past few years have been weird. Usually, they're filled with anxiety because her mom will inevitably text just to say hi and it leads to a big discussion as to whether or not she wants to text back.  We have been no-contact with them for several years.  The reasons are plentiful, but the main reason is lack of respect for her, me, and a general lack of disinterest in our children (despite demanding answers as to why their grandbabies deleted them from their social media accounts years ago - y'all know what you did and didn't do).   Their presence just kind of looms on the horizon like a small, dark rain cloud that you know that when it finally does rain, it's going to dump on you.   Oddly enough, I'm the one that woke up kinda grumpy, though.  I actually woke up around 3:30 this morning.  I stayed in bed reading for a while.  I wanted to see Jack off to school and take his picture because today i...