eandesmom
I'm with Beast
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2009
I hate being an adult.
Yeah. Me too.
It's funny, I was ok not booking bounceback. Free Dining and the buy 4 get 3 are better promo's for our clan and I knew it would come up. Bounceback was just too soon for DH. I have to pace him. He'd be on the every 3 year plan and I'm trying to move that up. 18 months is pretty soon for him. We are big on travel. Both with the full family, and as a couple and I am used to (spoiled?) planning some fun things even if they aren't exotic or expensive. So I'm ok with waiting till 8/10 for the world. For us, it's a big and far away trip and the blended family logistics/scheduling is difficult at best.
Which brings me to my current malaise. Or part of it anyway.
We are a blended family. In our case that means we have my 2 (the younger ones) 24/7. We have DH's 2, my skids, EOW and every Thursday. We are also supposed to get the skids for 2 weeks in the summer, 1 week at xmas and "other time" as reasonably split (i.e. presidents week/spring break, the schools do not always take a full week for presidents so that varies).
We alternate thanksgivings and xmas is always a negotiation nightmare. Don't get me started. At any rate, (and here is the vent) Dh's plan really has no PLANNING provisions when it comes to the summer vacation part. Sure, he gets 2 weeks but there is no notification period, no right of first refusal, no real guarantee that the kids mom will ever actually agree to the weeks we request.
Before anyone thinks I'm slamming the skids mom, I'm not. She loves her kids, she does. She is very different than I but she'd do anything for her kids. The problem is "anything" in her mind is a very different parenting style than DH and I have. Anything means that the kids dictate what they do at the other house. Where they go, who they go with, when they go. Or not go. They call the shots. And she would prefer that they called the shots over here, or that she dictated where we go. So, for example on our Feb trip she was NOT supportive of them going. She wanted us to ask them if they wanted to go and if not, choose somewhere else that they picked. She felt they were too old. Well, as it was a xmas present, that didn't really work. Not to mention the fact that we felt strongly a 16 and 12 year old should get to pick where the family goes! So we decided to go ahead and give it as they gift and the skids could chose to join us or not. As you can see, they chose to come, and had a blast. We have GREAT family trips together but the drama around it with their mom is, well, draining to say the least.
Tink is a jock. And then some. Part of the drama for the Feb trip was that she'd miss 2 basketball practices for her middle school team. Which meant that she'd miss the 1st 2 games as she wouldn't have enough practice in by school rules. No issues with Tink missing school but sports come first with her mom (granted as a straight A student, we don't have to worry about grades with Tink).
Now, if basketball was her primary, or favorite sport, I could get it. But it's not. It is by far her least proficient sport and she barely made the team. But until the 11th hour there was the possibility that Tink would pull out due to the disapproval of her mom for her missing those 2 practices. It puts Tink in a hideous position which I can't stand.
Fast forward to summer. As I mentioned, Tink is a jock. And then some. She plays select soccer, which is year round. This year they changed the tryout schedules to better time state cup games with high school soccer. That meant that we didn't know what team she'd be on (officially) until late may and didn't get a summer tournament schedule until early June.
We knew that and had figured that once we had it, we'd figure out a week that worked around the tournaments (as of COURSE she can't miss one, or the practices right before) and go then. Since we'd done a huge 2 week road trip last summer (which was also met with dissaproval from the other house but the kids had a blast) and had just done Disney in Dec, we figured we'd just camp somewhere new...be flexible about where and it wouldn't be that hard to make something fit locally.
Except it is that hard.
Bottom line is a total of 3 weeks/weekends worked. Except none of them do.
The first week, which would have fallen over "our" weekend, and was ideal from our perspective, we put our request in for. That won't work as Tink had been invited to go on vacation with a friends family and her mom had already told them she could go. Ok...that was OUR weekend and she is supposed to ask before she does stuff like that. She never does and it puts us in that bad spot, we like her friend, of course we want her to be able to go, but it literally steals critical time from us. Not to mention the fact that it falls over Tink bday, which she historically has at our lake club and had planned to this summer as well. Since her bday fell on the weekend, our weekend, we assumed that would be the day for the party. Guess not.
After much huffing and puffing a weekend trade was made. Which, had they simply asked up front, would have eliminated the drama and bad feelings.
2 other potential weeks/weekends were left. Except those were iffy. In addition to Tink's regular team, she's in our state ODP pool. Which means Olympic Development. There is a regional camp that the top 16 girls go to. Tink had been playing on their "b" team so DH felt assured she wouldn't go. Her mom was convinced she had a good chance.
Sure enough...she was named an alternate.Which means life is on hold until up to 2 days before the 1 week camp, waiting to see if someone gets hurt.
Again, DH was convinced no one would get hurt so requested that week from the ex, stating we'd go with or without Tink (go where is another issue but I'll get to that separately).
Sure enough, now Tink is being invited to scrimmage with the "a" team and is on all the "a" team emails. Is she going? Is she not? Who knows. All I know is it's in 2 weeks and we can't plan anything.
We "have" to take that week with Steven at a minimum and now DH is all stressed as there isn't anything cool planned. And I'm cranky as we shouldn't have to romance his kids. This is NOT coming from the skids at all, purely stuff DH puts on himself and his ex well, feeds on, sadly. The skids rock. They truly do. I love those kids. I'd walk through fire for them. I am blessed to have them in my life. And DH fights these battles, they aren't mine but it is hard to watch.
So here is where I'm at and I need to snap out of it. I am always the vacation planner, I love it. I can't plan this time. More importantly (and disturbingly) I don't want to plan.
I'm not going to book things, to have to go back and cancel. I don't even have anywhere I want to book. 2 of the places that were highest on our list are kind of "ruined" for me, for this summer anyway. One, Tink is going to with her friend and the 2nd, Steven went to last week with his youth group! We like to do new things with the kids. And sure, it'd be new to the little ones but the older ones would be bored, BTDT kind of thing (or at least that's DH's fear). Again, his issue but it's such a pervasive issue, now I'm paranoid!
I have told DH I'm not planning anything. I'm fried. I've come up with idea after idea after idea. I've sent links. We can't schedule anything and I'm done. What we could have done is gone now anyway. So if he wants to do something then, he has to plan it. Which he won't. And so I have
NTD. No travel depression.
We do have a 3 day camping trip with friends with just the little boys. We will go to all of Tinks tournaments, none of which are local. And on one my FIL and his wife will join us. I do have a girls retreat weekend in late August. But we have no true FAMILY trip and I really really look forward to those. Right now I "guess" we are going to my family's cabin for a couple of the days but DH is so less than excited, part of me is "why bother".
NOT LIKE ME AT ALL!It's the first day of summer for me, mentally. The younger boys just got out of school last Wednesday. Technically I am sort of out of a job as of tomorrow. I cleared out my desk yesterday. So I have the ability to actually enjoy summer days with them which I should be excited about. I have plans to go to the lake with them later today and meet friends, hopefully that will jump start me. But I'm cranky about this whole vacation thing (and mildly stressed about the job thing). So I am not as much fun to be around as I'd like to be....especially when the conversation turns to "what are you guys up to this summer?"
Sigh.
I really, truly, seriously considered running away with the 2 younger ones to Hawaii for a week to visit cousins. Airfares are amazing right now. But with the job thing...a no go. I looked at DLR. We could drive. It's a long drive (and also cheap flights) but....it's not the World. I can't justify the cost, which is the same as a deluxe in the world, for DLR. I've stayed off property there before...not the same.
I have a lead on something amazing on the job front...have had 2 interviews but...won't know till the end of the month. Because the hiring folks are on their OWN vacations. Kind of ironic.
So, 8/10 THV. We are going to go then no matter what. We are going to book regardless of the fact that we will not have a clue when soccer is. If the skids can go, want to go, are allowed to go, great. If not, well then it's an if not. My MIL and her husband will be with us so hopefully that will sway the skids into correctly prioritizing family. But we won't know until June. Makes the ADR thing kinda hard
Allright. If you read any of this, thanks and I'll stop whining now.
oohhh....a massage!! What a great birthday present!! I love all the pictures of the WL!!
I'm hoping to stay there one day. It looks like a beautiful resort.
I read the whole thing, and I feel for you. In some ways, I really understand how you feel. My husband's parents are divorced, and for a long time, it wasn't pretty. Without going into it, we had very, very similar issues that you do. My husband is one of four, and the younger two siblings were still at home, and...what a mess.
Stopping by to say you have an adorable family and you truly do look like you could pass for one of the siblings. 
Hope something works out soon.
love it!
I'm pretty sure you have already gone on that trip and come back by now, so I hope you had a great time!
)
