Yikes!

If I was a klutz yesterday, yikes is the word for today.

Let me step back for a second (OK, I don't know the meaning of a second, we'll make it a minute). Yikes wouldn't happen except in a separated family which I believe is dysfunctional by definition. Since my son moves between two homes, things move with him. It would not be right for him to enjoy something and have it restricted to one household.

For my son the problem isn't too severe, he has one household (his mothers) and he "visits" me for three evenings after school for four hours. That's 12 hours per week out of his 50 hours per week awake at home (while school is in session) or 90 hours when on vacation (then I get 15 hours). He never spends a whole day, never over night, never a weekend (except maybe four hours on one weekend day). This is not by my choice. Despite that, I have made a home environment, complete with a bedroom with a bed he never sleeps in.

She rarely lets him bring anything to my home. I let him take things from my home to her place, eventually she'll bring them back.

My son looks up to me and thinks everything of mine is his. And for the most part that has been OK. He'll use my office equipment, my digital camera and video equipment, etc. He lays claim to areas of my home office (well equipped as I was a consultant in a startup business). He has a natural curiosity and wants to know how things work.

One of my office items is an Olympus VN-240PC digital recorder (which I highly recommend). He has seen it and I occasionally let him make recordings. It has multiple folders and he doesn't know that, so I separate out misc items and legal items by folder.

So while I was making dinner he picked up my recorder, took it with him, and left it in his pocket. Just after he left, I get a call. She came back because he said, "I want to borrow Daddy's recorder, but I forgot to ask".

OMG, I have some crazy legal crap going on (haven't blogged about it because it is so disturbing). I go out to her car and he asks if he can use it at Mommy's. In my calmest voice, I say, "No, not this time, Daddy needs it tomorrow morning". That is the truth, I try not to lie to him. Sometimes I have to push his question off because this divorce process would have me lying all the time.

So what was on the recorder, that may have spent the day at my wife's? In a different folder, that she could have accessed, confidential discussions with my lawyer. Yikes!

I'm already in the habit of shutting down my logon id, he has his own logon id on my computers. In the 2nd grade he knows about "My Recent Documents", probably from my hacker brother-in-law, where on my logon id it would point to my draft Blog posts, legal references, court pleadings, etc. So he has his own logon id, with it's own wallpaper, and recent documents that include KidPix (recommend that too) drawings and the like...

I didn't want to let on what a disaster that could have been to have the recorder leave my house. So by time I see him next, I'll have to explain why there are some things that Daddy needs to stay at his home.

Another close call, what does it mean? I dodged this one too. Normally I'd have (what some people would consider boring) high tech seminars or some other harmless topic on the recorder. It is just at this juncture the contents are not for him and especially not for his mother's home.