Auspicious beginning to the new arrangement....
As I've explained in other posts, we've recently switched days with BM (upon SD7's request). We now have her M-F, and she has her on weekends.
For the past 4 weeks, SD7 hasn't seen BM because she went on vacation with us and then went to visit DH's family before school started. We offered to bring SD7 to BM's this past weekend for a visit but BM was "out of town." BM has spoken to SD7 three times in the past four weeks... all of which were when I called so SD7 could say goodnight. BM didn't call yesterday, the first day of school.
This weekend will be the first weekend she keeps her. We were pleasantly surprised to find out she had offered to keep her Labor Day. We were poised to take her back, should BM have a party or something to attend...
BUT, the two following weekends, BM has "weddings to go to." So she'll be picking SD7 up Friday night, and bringing her back Saturday afternoon two weeks in a row.
:O OK :O
We're happy to keep her. We'd be happy to keep her all the time. That's not the issue. The issue is that this BM is so freaking selfish that she can't be bothered to be there for her kid.
We can't switch days, because we live really far apart and SD7 goes to school near us. We just have to accept that BM is incapable of saying "I can't go to this wedding" or "Can I bring my kid to this wedding?" or "Maybe I should get a babysitter for this wedding," so she can *sort of* have her kid all weekend.
Oh well.
Afterthought: If these
Afterthought: If these weddings happen Saturday evenings, why does she need all day Sunday to herself? Is she planning on getting THAT drunk?
Sigh. I don't know her all
Sigh. I don't know her all that well, but I fear this may be the case.
DH says BM was always complaining that they were "boring" when they were married because they didn't go out all the time. He pointed out that they chose to keep the baby they made before they were 20, so it came with the territory... but that's not how she sees it.
She feels like she's owed her youth, and the freedom to be as buckwild as she wants. Therefore, everyone has to bend to accommodate her social calendar. DH once agreed to watch SD so BM and her boyfriend could try blow.
...What's the alternative? Making her watch SD while she's on blow???
Thank you for posting this.
Thank you for posting this.
DH already said yes, so it's too late to back out now. HOWEVER, on future occurrences, he's poised to say no. I brought up "What if she tries to back out of the weekend we signed up for Lamaze class? Do we just lose what we paid for it because she had something come up?" He said in the future, he'll say "It's your time with her. We've already watched her for you two weekends in a row. You need to figure something out."
A big part of the problem is that BM's mom just moved back to Brazil. She used to live nearby BM, and who knows how often she kept SD7. We picked SD7 up from her grandmother's house quite a bit, so I'm guessing it's a lot. Now BM doesn't have that crutch anymore, and she actually has to be a mom.
That's the part that bugs me!! She does practically NOTHING for this child, and yet her whole persona is that she's this beleaguered single immigrant mother. For instance, she and her mom threw SD7 a birthday party on our day, so we had do bring her to east bumblearmpit and bring her back. Everyone there was a friend of BM's..there was only one other child in attendance. When it came time to leave, one of her friends asked me, "Wait--she's going with YOU?" and I said "Yes, she stays with us on the weekends." I think BM likes to give off the impression that she's always taking care of her kid and it's so hard cuz she's so young and blah blah blah. But that's not the truth.
You're right, though. It doesn't actually MATTER what the truth is. It matters what's best for SD7. She needs stability. She needs to know her mommy wants her. If BM REALLY prizes her social life more than time with her child, she has no business being a parent. We're prepared to seek full custody, should it come to that.