Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Another Summer Gone

Yesterday, Chas (the one year old) and I saw Kyle (the eleven year old) off at the Portland airport. The two-and-a-half hour drive gives us plenty of time to talk and rehash all of our issues.

Kyle spent some of the time telling me that he did not want to go back to his moms, which is hard for me to hear because I would rather have him here.

This evil side of me (believe me, the evil side is fairly significant.) likes to hear that he does not really want to spend any time with his mom; this is something he told me frequently this summer.

He explained to me that the goals he has for himself are not in sync with what his mom wants for him (my words not his), so she chooses to down play and ignore them.

I am not surprised by this; she seems to be of the ilk that wants her child to like what she likes and do what she wants him to do.

It is a dilemma for me, when I hear him confirming what I already feared I want to swoop in and just take him away from her.
On the other hand I think that this transition thing is stressful and he is just expressing it. Going from house to house was much less stressful for him when we were doing it every week. The change was less drastic. Now, with half of his family living so far away, the change is huge. It is more like a visit; we don't refer to it that way of course, (he has his own room and some of his stuff is here.) but it can't be denied that being here for less than three months is more like vacation than just plain life.

Frankly, I miss just having him around

2 comments:

Sister Mary Lisa said...

That's gotta be tough. I remember my stepdaughter (who was with us most of the time and with her mom every other weekend) and the transition time that would come in summer whenever she had been with her mom for a month. Very difficult.

I feel for you both.

beatdad said...

Hi Mary Lisa.

Thank You