We have it written into our custody papers that he gets the kids on Father's Day, and I get them on Mother's Day.  We've always just swapped weekends in the past if those weren't are weekends with the kids.  My daughter's birthday and mine are both this week (Thurs. her and Fri. me), and so she asked her dad a few weeks ago if he'd switch weekends - so that they could be with him on Father's Day and with me on "our" birthday.  I figured it'd be no problem.  I was surprised last weekend when they came back from being out of state with their dad to be told that he said he was going to have to work, so there would be no swap.  My daughter was fairly upset.  My son never shows much emotion on such matters, and he remained true to form this time.  Now, I KNOW my daughter had asked my ex WEEKS ahead of time about a swap.  He's a freaking waiter at a Mexican restaurant.  I'm sure he could have just asked for that weekend off, or asked for only evening hours or whatever.  I'm not sure why he couldn't do that.  He had time.  But he's making it seem like he has to work so it's impossible.  He works evenings - it's not like he was going to work the ENTIRE weekend.  They could have made some time during his downtime to celebrate their dad.  They wanted to.  HE didn't want to.

Well, I would have put up more of a stink about it if they didn't have my dh to spend Father's Day with.  Normally he spends it with just his daughter (only child) and me - my kids have always been with their dad.  This time I was concerned that my stepdd would be upset that she had to share him on what's always been their special day, but she and my dd are close (despite stepdd being almost 21 and my dd turning 13), and I know that stepdd know that dd is upset about this.  So there was no resistance from her.  All three of the kids got Father's Day presents for my dh.  They cooked him breakfast and blew up balloons and wrote wonderful messages on them personalized to dh.  They gave him gifts and cards.  We all saw a movie together yesterday afternoon.  We spent time with my father and siblings in the morning.  Overall, it was a nice day.

I did ask dd earlier in the week if she'd gotten her father anything for Father's Day, and she told me that she had time since she wasn't going to see him this weekend.  Okay.  Yesterday I asked her if she'd called her father to wish him a happy Father's Day.  She said yes.  I was a bit surprised.  I said, "How are you about him not spending this weekend with you?"  She said, "Fine".  I asked how her brother felt about it, and she said, "I don't know.  But I don't really want to talk about this or I'll start crying."  So yeah, it bothers her.

Part of me wants to just leave the situation alone.  If he's trying to slowly exit their lives, then this is just a brick in the wall that they need to see put up so they can handle the wall they'll someday see.  I also don't want him spending time with his kids because his ex wife yelled at him.  If he can't do it for his and kids' sake, then it's not worth much.  The other part of me wants to call up my ex and tell him that he really hurt the kids.  He did the same exact thing on his own birthday - the kids were told they'd be getting picked up that evening to be taken out for dinner with Dad, only to be blown off at the last minute.  He tried to blame it on my son, who was really hurt to see that his dad tried to manipulate the situation.

My kids aren't babies anymore, and I know that at least my dd isn't the least bit afraid to confront my ex about her feelings.  But what an asshole.  I'm so glad they still had a father's day anyway.

Kel