Aaaaah, summer.....visitation.

I got a call last night at 10:30p from Grace's father. She has been with him since last Saturday, the 13th. Today is the first day of "normal" summer schedule [read: not on vacation out of town]. He called to ask if I could pick up Grace to accompany her to a hair appointment she scheduled at 4p and then bring her to his house, 20 miles out of town.

There is such a long and convoluted story that leads up to this late night phone call, you would either be snoozing or checking your email in another window before getting through half of it. I won't torture you. Many questions ran through my head after his phone call.

• Is it really so hard to keep up with your child's schedule that during the mere four weeks she visits with you during the summer, you can't figure out a way to make the schedule work?
• Why didn't he tell Grace that this time wouldn't work and tell her to reschedule the hair cut appointment for a more convenient time?
• Why did the guy wait until 10:30p at night to call and ask me about this? Who calls their ex that late at night?

I think this comes down to a personality difference between Grace's father and me, or maybe just a skill difference. It's that ability to problem solve, or the ability to see the plan that you are formulating is a poor one and you need to rethink the whole thing. I've written here before about how much this guy is really poorly skilled in this area. It's why his plans fall apart and why problems seem to always be landing in his lap and why he can never seem to show up on time. Everyone around him picks up the slack. Or everyone doesn't pick up the slack and just accepts that the chaos that may ensue is just part of the normal ebb and flow of life.

So, there we are. Ten days into summer break and I realize that this guy is lacking in an essential skill for parenting. He's so lacking that at some point calling his ex-wife at 10:30p to get her to pick up the slack seemed like the best option. My thought is, if he can't take care of the kid and her schedule, a schedule he enthusiastically embraced and assured everyone that would work, why not just let Grace come home and see him when he can work it out? Is it really necessary for Grace to live with him for four consecutive weeks during the summer, what the courts awarded him seven years ago, if he's really not up to the task?

By coincidence, I read through our divorce and custody settlement a few weeks ago, which states explicitly that arrangements for this four week summer stay are to be settled no later than January 1 before the summer. I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read that; he's never made that deadline. It has been four years since Grace spent this allotted four summer weeks with her father, mostly due to a fantastically awful situation that arose during the summer of 2005 when Grace's father left town with her and didn't tell me where he was or how to reach him. I called Grace's cell phone, no answer. I called his cell phone, no answer. Two days passed and I heard nothing. I got panicked. I called his parents and asked them how I could get in touch with them because no one would return my phone calls. His mother assured me that even though she had no idea where they were and had not heard anything from them in days, nor had anyone else, they were perfectly fine and there was no reason to worry. When he finally did meet up with his parents in Colorado at a mountain cabin resort (remember, he lives in Michigan and we lived on the East Coast at the time), he took the time to telephone me and to yell at me, saying I had no right to try and find him like that.

Um, well, actually I do. It's clearly spelled out in a court order that I do have that right, as does he, and it's a right of his that I had never violated. Oops. He was never very good at understanding legal documents. Ah, well, what are you going to do...

Since that time, I really haven't trusted him to take care of Grace for four consecutive weeks, nor have I trusted him to take care of her while I wasn't local to both of them. He never got his act together to come up with a plan for her to visit during the summer for that long, consequently, this is the first time that we've tried four weeks since the "Summer of 2005 Fiasco." For last summer's tale, you can read a brief recap here.

Grace is coming home this next weekend for a couple days. I worked that into the schedule because I wanted to give her 48 hours of recuperation time in the middle of this four week marathon of living with her father and his family. I also am, indeed, meeting her at the hair dresser this afternoon to see her for that brief hour and pay for her hair cut. July 10th, the day she is expected home for the rest of the summer, can't come soon enough. I'm so never agreeing to this again. He can sue me, but he won't. And frankly, I don't think he really wants the opportunity to parent for this extended time. I think he's always been relieved that I take care of all the difficult needs of this girl.