You remember Dan? He's the dad at my kids' school that I was dating for a few months. (I wrote my first blog about him.) We got along okay, but his kids seemed to have difficulty with him having a relationship, so I broke it off.

There were other reasons for the break-up, but the bottom line is that, in his eyes - - we were "just friends." He told me the words "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" were not going to be used, because of his kids and his fresh divorce. But of course he enjoyed all the privileges of having a girlfriend, if you know what I mean.

Whatever.

When I ended the relationship, there were no hard feelings, no screaming, all the pots and pans stayed in the cabinets. I'm okay with him, I see him at school, and we treat each other as friends. But he seems to still want to use me for certain duties that I just am not comfortable with.

Now, get your minds out of the gutter. I'm not talking about that.

He has called me on more than one occasion to sit his kids. Now remember, I have two kids of my own. He has three. That's five kids to watch, which wouldn't be a big deal, if he were my boyfriend. But you know what? It's a big deal to me now.

I'm going to night school right now to train for a new career. I also work part time during the day while my kids are at school. Three days a week after school, I'm driving them around to various activities. My life has me so frazzled most of the time we're all very lucky to be alive at the end of the day. Can you imagine how things would be if I added three extra kids to the mix?

Now when I was dating Dan, I sometimes picked his daughter, Malika, up from school and had her visit with my daughter while he was off doing guy things with his sons. I still have her over sometimes. In fact, a few weekends ago I took both girls to an arts festival. Afterward, we went to a cool beach-side shack for some burgers. There was some old surfing footage playing on a big screen. Malika pointed at the television and said, "My dad's girlfriend is teaching me how to surf this summer."

Girlfriend.

"That's cool, Malika," I said, not missing a beat. I glanced at my daughter. She went on eating her fries, totally nonplussed. She didn't seem to be as surprised and outraged at hearing that Dan had a girlfriend. She's only seven after all, still completely naive in the ways of men, women, and those all-too-important relationship labels.

Dan has called me often in these last few weeks to try to get all our kids together to "hang out." That's code for me picking up his kids, feeding them, and him collecting them sometime close to lights out. I have refused every time. Not because of what Malika let slip that afternoon. Well.. maybe it is that. I don't know.

Today Dan called AGAIN. He started the conversation with, "Do the boys have track practice today?"
Me: "I don't know. My son isn't in track this year."
Dan: "Oh, well, the thing is, I'm out of town, and I'm not sure if I'll be back in town to pick them up from school."
Me: "Oh, gee that's a tough one."
Dan: "Hey, can they hang out with your kids until I get in?"
Me. "Sorry, I have stuff going on after school today." I also reminded him that I don't have room for five kids in my car.
Dan: "Oh, well thanks anyway..."
Me: (very matter-of-fact, with no spite, I swear) "Why don't you ask your girlfriend?"
Dan: "Oh, well, she's with me. We're out of town."

Uh huh.

When I was waiting in the parking lot for my kids to get out of school, I looked around. I didn't see Dan. I didn't see his ex-wife, Maggie, either. It's now 8 p.m. For all I know, those kids are still waiting for him, while he drives back from his joyride with his girlfriend.