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40 days of visitation... Advice would be appreciated

loveandfitness's picture

I'm close to my third trimester with baby#2. I'm stressed out with a lot on my plate. I just completed school and started applying for jobs and am already trying to prepare in case I do land one, not that I expect to get one considering my due date...but you never know. If I do get one I want to move out of where we are staying immediately. I've also been put in charge of various summer activities at church and have scheduled Doctors appointments regularly, and taking care of our BS4.
Now for the problem. Considering DH and I both have such hectic schedules with all the things i'm doing and DH basically working two jobs, visitation will be hard enough as it is. (if you've read previous posts you know SS10 is not a saint.) DH is supposed to have hime starting tomorrow through the end of the summer. We had a three week section of time where we thought we could visit both of our families out of town; they live in different cities about 4 hours from each other but you have to pass through one city to get to the other. (I'll be in 3rd tri by this time and an added reason for this vacation is to pick up much needed baby items from my sister that she is giving us)) Thing is, Evil BM scheduled some sort of leadership camp for SS10 SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE of this time slot.....several hours away from anywhere we would be...not even in his home town. She did send an e-mail about it to DH a month ago (he NEVER checks this email) and assumed since there was no reply that it was okay.
We have three options as to how to deal with this. A. It would take A LOT of gas and milage on the car, but we take him to and from camp in the middle of our vacation sacrificing precious time (days) with our families. B. We drop him off at home (it's on our way) before vacation and pick him up after vacation, BM can take him to camp and he misses seeing family entirely, to which DH's family will throw a HUGE fit and be extremely upset with us. C. We tell him he can't go and he's upset with US for not allowing him something he's so been looking forward to. No matter what, SOMEONE get's screwed. DH is SUPER upset.
I'd just as soon tell him too damn bad you're not going.... but it's makes us look like the bad guy, and poor DH gets that a lot. I feel extremely bad for DH.....And I know it's not fair and I'm being selfish, but I'm pissed that I have to cater to these people.
I swear BM stays up late plotting the evil things she can get away with and then feeds off the ensuing drama.

Comments

BethAnne's picture

Sounds like your husband deserves the blame for this one. He should check his emails. BM is partly wrong to book something on dad's time, but she did try (not very hard mind) to get his approval. I would suggest that either SS misses camp or SS stays with BM and your husband has to work out which is best and take the flack from family or SS, he messed up, he sorts it. Don't worry about it, it isn't your problem to fix.

Nette5's picture

10 is old enough to be told the truth and given an option that can be done. A) you miss camp & see family or Dirol you miss family & go to camp.

This way he doesn't get to be mad for the choice HE makes and DH isn't the bad guy.

Disneyfan's picture

The poor kid shouldn't have to pay for dad's mistake. More than likely he is excited about and looking forward to both camp and visiting family. Making him pick one because dad dropped the ball is just mean.

loveandfitness's picture

This seems to be the best option to me now. Letting him choose what he wants to do and no one can be upset. Yes DH should be more diligent about checking his e-mail, however she knows his set time and SHOULD NOT be scheduling anything during that time. Plus, she could've called or mentioned it before hand as we've had visitation several times since.

oneoffour's picture

Frankly I suspect with your overactive life you will go into preterm labor! Sweetie, take a breather.

So Dad dropped the ball. Drop the boy at his mothers (after all, she arranged the camp) and pick him up afterwards. If DHs family have a meltdown just let them know beforehand and if they still have a fit and complain, don't visit them. Don't stress yourselves out visiting people who will be snotty anyway. I am sure they can all visit you all when the baby is here.

Do you have a contingency plan if you go into labor on this road trip? I am more concerned about you than a 10 yr old. Taking a long road trip to get baby supplies ... don't they have mail in your part of the country? From the sounds of things you just need a stint on bedrest to throw a wrench in the works for all your plans.

Mr10 can go to the camp. And maybe throw some gas money at BM to make up for DHs slack behavior. You go on your roadtrip if you must but make sure you have contingency plans.

BM was due the first week of the New Year. BM insisted they travel 2 hours away from town to visit her parents for Christmas (read: Snow laden prairie roads)against medical advice because she wanted to. My YSS was born 2 weeks early by c-section 3 days after Christmas because the roads were closed and they couldn't get back to the city to deliver as per the physicians plan. YSS was oxygen deprived a little at birth which makes me wonder if this contributed to his ADHD. We will never know. But I always err on the side of caution.

loveandfitness's picture

Thank you everyone for the advice.
So what ended up happening is we found him a different camp that is earlier in the month. It's not as long and it wasn't budgeted for, but all around it looks like WAY more fun than a "leadership" camp ever would've been, especially for a 10yo. Everyone is happy. SS gets to go to camp AND see family. No mess. BM never even said anything about reimbursement so she probably had not paid anything towards the camp yet... I suspect the whole "camp" thing was possibly made up in the first place just to cause turmoil....and no, I'm not being dramatic; it's happened before.
Either way, I still feel very strongly that BM should NOT be scheduling things on DH time, yes I KNOW he dropped the ball by not answering e-mails about it... but there are other forms of communication.
Lol, yes we could get things by mail, but it could get ore expensive than driving. I'm talking everything from clothing to the big stuff : high chair, swing, bouncer, exersaucer, possibly a crib among other things. As much as I can take is what was offered, lol.
I'm less stressed now as things begin to fall into place.