Waiting for stepkids
Do your schedules revolve around the stepkids?
BM was planning a trip to see her family and wanted to take SD and asked if there were any dates that wouldn't work for us. We said there were no conflicts. SD mentioned to her mom that she wanted to be back in time for my birthday, which is sweet, although I'm not sure it's so much for me as SD having FOMO in general. Anyway, her dad told her mom, they didn't have to plan around my bday - it was no big deal. Now I dunno if he was saying celebrating my birthday was no big deal (bc he would be WRONG, haha) or whether he was saying he didn't think it was necessary to accomodate SD's attendance. He also said we could celebrate when she got back.
This makes me curious in general of how others handle the back and forth. Do you wait to do birthdays/holidays/trips together? We are on a week to week schedule with BM. SD wants to be involved in EVERYTHING. If we tell her what we did over the weekend, she'll pout that she wasn't there, or if something is planned on a future date when she's scheduled to be with her mom, she'll ask why she can't go. From our perspective, she's living life and having fun when she's with her mom and we're just trying to do the same. If she's here, she's here...if not, we're sure she's having a different kind of fun at her mom's.
How much do your stepkids play into your plans?
We would have never waited to
We would have never waited to celebrate my BD until the SD's were there. However, that might not have meant that the SD'smight not have been around for a cake or we had a 2nd meal out.
Fun Fact, my YSD planned a birthday party for me when she was 8 years old.. invited her grandparents.. uncle, aunt and cousins.. got my DH to grill out and made him get me a cake. She thought it was horrible that I didn't have a birthday party..lol.
hahaha that's so cute!
hahaha that's so cute!
That's why I want to jump in
That's why I want to jump in the car and drive 5 hours to stomp on her "ex" BF's heart... he cheated on her.. and she has been nothing but good to him.. grrrr.
We didn't play everything
We didn't play everything around SS, except maybe Christmas - we'd wait for him to open gifts, but it was just the two of us, so who cares.
My birthday? No, never. If he was there, he could join in.
Not only do we have to plan
Not only do we have to plan everything around skids (guilty daddy over here) but after we adjust and plan accordingly..... BM finds a way to screw plan B up so pretty much any and everything we do is miserable and in no way enjoyable because there is always drama. And most of the time we end up with the original plan being able to work but we have already changed everything.
Its been 3 years and I am about done. It’s DHs fault ....he lives in fear of skids and BM.
just this Christmas I wanted to have a family Christmas Eve and do dinner and gifts with skids and bio kids.....Bm was hell bent that they couldn’t come over on Christmas Eve. So I decided okay we can do it Christmas Day evening....so on Christmas Eve we threw a last minute party for friends and neighbors.....and guess what??? Skids found out and BM dropped them off for the entire party. I was pissed because we could have just done our Christmas as originally planned
Oh god, sorry...that sucks
Oh god, sorry...that sucks
No, we don't wait for the
No, we don't wait for the skids. Of course, there are some kid-oriented things that we wouldn't do if they weren't there, simply because we wouldn't want to. I was glad that the skids were with BM for my birthday, as I preferred celebrating with just my family and DH. It's not that I wouldn't have enjoyed celebrating with the skids if we had them that weekend, but I appreciated having a more "adult" celebration. We are lucky to have a good co-parenting relationship with BM, so if there's a family outing or party or the like on a day we wouldn't have the skids, BM will let us take them if she doesn't have plans, and vice versa. That makes things a lot easier. Having a BM who isn't NPD, insane or bitter makes steplife much better.
Nope not any more
It had gotten to the stage especially at weekends, on the days we were supposed to have ss9 that we were sat around waiting half the day for him to finish up with his sports (fair enough) and other hobbies, by which point bd3 was tearing the house up bored. Last Thurs n sat (our time) we get a last min message that he is attending 2 birthday parties for the same lass. For the Saturday I had already booked us non refundable tickets to an animal park, so I pulled the plug. Hubby agreed, it can't go on like this. So we have now said we will only make access arrangements with bio mum by email, these are the dates and times going forward you are meant to come, if you can't 2 weeks notice pls, we won't be offering the alternate day. Might seem harsh but it was also ruining our weekends couldn't plan anything etc screw that
DH could be planning a fun weekend
trip to nice hotel alone time , nice restaurant, nice bed
We celebrate the holidays on
We celebrate the holidays on the holiday, regardless of if the skids are there or not. We still do some kind of celebration when they get home, but it's normally smaller becuase they weren't here for the actual one.
So I wouldn't worry about planning around her. Celebrate on your birthday with your DH!!! Then you could do like a small party when she gets back IF you WANT.
This is incredibly good
This is incredibly good advice to follow. I wish I had done this from the get to and things would be so much easier. Like Thanksgiving is on MOTHER EFFING Thanksgiving Day, not the Saturday following. It just makes for horrible Holiday seasons...skipping the actual holiday and then doing something on another day. Why bother.
I am going to put this into action, I think. After our Christmas fiasco last year and then a few months our 1 year old first b-day and that whole shit show b/c BM kept asking to change it for skid and we did....for no reason b/c skid ended up being there the whole day.
I have kids....DH has kids...we have a kid....Christmas is on Christmas....Easter is on Easter.....whoever is here can celebrate with us and whoever isn't can have a very consensed version if needed.....
love it.
It really is. Even with the
It really is. Even with the custody schedule, at first it was "oh, this is my week, but can you take her?" which would cause the subsequent weeks to get flip-flopped, which makes it impossible to plan anything if the schedule keeps flipping on a whim. We later agreed that if you ask the ex to help babysit during your week, you forfeit that time with SD and do not get to "make it up" the following week. ie no one gets to choose time based on their own convenience unless arragements were made and agreed to in advance.
It's easier to accommodate one kid like us, but for you guys with multiple kids, definitely need a stricter schedule. Good luck!