End of one chapter, start of another

[kells76]

Once again it's been a while -- here's the latest.

If you remember, Mom was dragging her feet on just about everything related to getting a PP on paper. Couldn't afford the class, delayed responding to emails, etc. You guys know how it is    :)H got a PP together with L and sent to Mom for review. Delay, delay, she asks for more time to talk with a L. Finally, after she gets a L, and DH gets tired of compromising (to the point where Mom panics -- I think -- and offers to pay for everyone to retake the required parenting class, just so DH won't stick to the deadline of filing before she gets a L... .Not sure if that makes sense, but you get the idea), we hear via our L that Mom is ready to sign in 24 hours. What a change of heart! Wow, she's suddenly motivated!

That was mid-last week, before DH reviewed stuff pre-signing with L. In the meantime, Stepdad takes sd7 to church on Sunday (we all go to the same one, which has been... .challenging). She comes over to hug DH & say hi, and also tells us "SD10 doesn't want to spend 2 nights in a row". So, basically, AFTER Mom has signed the PP but BEFORE DH has, Mom is already up to the usual. We don't know if sd7 was out up to this or if she just overheard it & told us. Either way, SIGH.

But now DH can use the court order (this is getting signed by a judge -- not just a "let's both sign something" deal) as the bad guy, instead of taking the hit. Plan for this weekend is to be in town on night 1 & out of town on night 2, so DH is just going to let sd10 call Mom and talk if she wants to. It's on Mom (hopefully) to either tell sd10 we all have to follow the plan, or to pull the usual and make sd10 think she doesn't want to be with us. Would she try coming out of town to get sd10? No idea. Maybe. Would she make it DH's "responsibility" to take sd10 back to town? No idea. Maybe.

Anyway, that's where we're at. L says he has DH's back if Mom tries to pull anything -- just call him right away. That's good to have. It's gonna be a big change for sd10 I think, but I'm really, really hoping that if DH can use the "Sorry, my hands are tied, have to follow the rules, don't want to get anyone in trouble" lines, sd10 will just have to go with it.

Oh, AND -- not only did our L have good things to say about Mom's L in terms of it working well for DH's position, turns out our MC has ALSO worked with Mom's L, and he said she doesn't take BS from anyone and is all about helping kids. So Mom may not have the negative advocate she'd hoped for -- explains the sudden 180 on signing the PP.

I'll try to keep you posted on new developments. Big change will be for DH to enforce the PP via L. Wish us luck.

[Thunderstruck]

Good luck!

Once this becomes a routine SD10 won't question it as much. You might get some pushback from her (fueled by uBPDbm I'm sure) at the beginning. Just stress that everyone signed and agreed upon this plan so let's go have fun!

[kells76]

Thanks for the wishes, TS. I also hope this gets to be routine. Hoping Mom doesn't ask them every time if they're "sure they really want to go".

I'll try to post more on the parenting board, too. There have been some overwhelming days, and just weird stuff the kids think/say/believe where I don't know how much is normal kid stuff and how much is totally dysfunctional Mom-think.

[david]

Sounds like a good start.

My ex tried blaming me for things like that in the beginning. I simply said that it was in our court order and that not following the court order would put us (mom or me) in contempt of court and the judge could punish either one of us. I didn't want that to happen to mom or me.