Coincidence - I think not!

My mom was the first to make this observation, but the chance of it being a coincidence was completely blown away today.

My mom observed that the times that my son is allowed to visit her (or me) seem to be optimized to maximize the meals that his host provides. For me that is usually just one, because the most I get him is 4 hours. But occasionally my mom will get him for 6 hours timed to be between two meals.

Now neither of us have a problem with feeding him, but because we only get him for such limited time, this just further chips away at the quality time that we can spend with him. For example the time I get my son straddles his meal time making it impossible for me to do much at all with him. My ex is paid child support that is higher in dollar and percentage of anyone that I know of. In one case my support payment is 9 times higher.

Sometimes this has been very blatant. On school holidays she is ordered to allow him to visit at 2pm to 7pm, which she has trouble complying with. She has brought him over after 2 without lunch, so I am expected to feed him twice in less than 5 hours. I really don't want to sound petty, I feed my son well, but is it fair that of my extra holiday time of only 5 hours that 40% of that time be spent on feeding him. If she isn't going to feed him lunch, why not bring him over at noon, instead of after 2pm. Now if I had normal visitation where he was staying the whole day and overnight, then feeding him would not take such a large chunk of time out of our visitation. It also seems quite unreasonable that he hasn't had lunch by 2pm.

As an NCP I am nothing more than an unpaid restaurant and baby sitter to be used or not at the discretion of the "winner" who withholds visitation without consequence.

Well today, I was scheduled for a full eye exam that should have made me an hour late for visitation. I have had significant problems in my right eye and warned my ex that this could run over, but I had little flexibility for scheduling this appointment. Things didn't go so well, the techs could not get a consistent Rx on my right eye. A surgeon was called as a consult and intensive tests were done requiring several rounds of local anesthetic to the eye. I was told that a very dense cataract needed to be removed and replaced with an artificial lens. It would be a higher risk procedure because of other conditions with this eye, but they said I "was practically blind in that eye now", so that didn't leave me with much choice. Most people have no difficulty seeing the top letter in an eye chart, I could not see any formed letters and was only aware of the bright light and its general shape.

So I was delayed 3 hours with these extra difficulties and only had one hour of visitation left. Now by this late hour, he should have eaten. My ex is well aware of the intense exam I would have gotten. What did my son say as he walked in for a mere one hour of visitation as I just concluded 3 hours of poking, prodding, and bright lights shined into my eyes? Hi Daddy, what's for dinner? You mean you haven't eaten yet? Nope! If I feed him that late she complains, but then that's typical for her rules for me not to apply to her.

Well as usual I tried to make the best out of the limited time, talking from the kitchen asking him about various things. But it falls short of the fatherhood I remember when he was young.

Life as an NCP sucks, it does not even come close to being a real parent! (jqism)