Under the new alternating holiday schedule, DH has SKids for four days over New Year's (turns into 7 when you tack on his visitation weekend). With that in mind, I decided to extend my time with my family and let DH "celebrate" New Year's alone with his children. I become certain that my choice was the right one after BM tried to cause drama over drop off because "how dare DH expect her to drop off the kids when she had to work on the 30th!" Too bad that their agreement says she had to drop them off at that time, also, I think she works from home most days. Finally, she could have easily said, "could you pick them up and I'll come to pick them up at the end of the weekend?", but that would have been too much. Also, she never allowed DH to change pick-up or drop off for his work schedule and even threatened to take him to court when he asked to move pick-up time after his work changed and BM moved an extra hour away, but I digress...

They had plans to go to the family cabin and DH told Skids they could each bring a friend. Yesterday was their first day there and DH was already complaining to me that SKids and friends are driving him crazy. They are bored because they can't use the Xbox (um, they should have thought of other things to bring / do, because the traditional party planner (i.e. me) is not around), they have already broken things - including a $40 sled (because they decided to use it with too many people riding on it), they are racing around the house like idiots instead of going out to play in the snow, and they ate all the food DH made for dinner without leaving any for him. They are teens, not toddlers, but since neither DH nor BM ever expect them to respect anyone, they behave like jerks all the time. They are surrounded by acres of wildnerness to go exploring, have snowball fights, sled on the remaining sleds. They also have tv and internet. But, they will still beg DH to take them out for bowling or pizza or the arcade (there isn't one out there, but every time we are there, they ask one of us to look for one). They begged to go out to this cabin for the entire time, but how dare anyone expect them to think of things they want to do on their own without someone else supplying the entertainment for them. Good luck, DH you will need to put up with them for the next six days and I will be far away and not have to worry about it. 

I will remind DH how annoying he found his children when he expects me to smile and greet them at the door like I'm excited at the prospect of seeing them on visitation weekends.