to want to be consulted as to who is taking my son to school

[Ladyanonymous]

Went away for the weekend. DS stayed with his dad an extra night as I didn't get back till today. There were two other alternatives to his dad having him, but he said it was fine and he would take him to school on Monday morning - DS dad lives 20 odd miles away so I had my reservations as to whether he would get him there on time.

I am part of a school run I normally drop DS at my friends and she takes him to school and I take the older children on to the other school. No reason why his dad couldn't have dropped him there this morning as I had my school run covered.

Picked DS up this afternoon, turns out his dads wife took him to school this morning. I feel a bit as I don't have anything to do with her, don't know her, the school have no idea who she is and I think I should have at least been consulted and know who is actually taking him to school - esp when there was no need for it to have anything to do with her.

AIBU to at least have expected his dad to check it was ok?!

I have made my peace....thats why I sound frustrated...I keep repeating myself - well intentioned though it has been on this thread I was not really looking for advice - I was looking for a safe place to have a rant about how (however irrationally!) pissed off I felt about her intruding on my space. We have an arrangement which works for us all and I felt it was broken. Its fine I realise I have to allow those lines to be blurred sometimes

• I can inderstand wanting to make step children feel at home - BUT for my son it does piss him off that he has to leave new toys at his dads that he only gets to play with twice a month and inevitably his little brother plays with when he is not there - they are his not his dads.

In general my kids and my stepkids have toys that are theirs that move with them wherever they go. There are some items though that we bought as games/toys for the house. They are to be kept here and the kids are told that when we get them. They are different to birthday/christmas presents though that are the children's to do with as they wish.
Kids often forget to bring stuff with them though so as a nonres parent you need to keep some stuff in the house, same if you're a relative who looks after the kids, grannies etc usually have toys that stay at their house.

Thats fair enough 2rebecca.

I just feel sorry for my son (and other kids I know in the same situation) who get given a gift (so therefore it is theirs to do as they like with as that is what I understand a gift to be?) who then aren't allowed (or encouraged) to take it home with them to where they live - and often these gifts hardly get any use as the weekend is activity filled or get trashed by other siblings.

re clothing. I don't do washing on a weekend usually so if I have children for the weekend who are going elsewhere on the monday the other parent has the option of dirty clothes returning with the child, or me keeping dirty clothes and washing them so they are clean for the next time the child is here. Often kids have favourite clothes and aren't keen on the latter option so I often do the former or have some clothes kept here, but that's not very practical at the rate kids grow and seasons change.

I agree if the toy is presented as a gift then it should be up to the child where they take it. Adding conditions to a gift isn't nice. No-one does that to me so I see no reason to do it to a child.

If that was the situation at my DS's dad and was explained to me like that I would be cool with it -

How the fuck on earth do you manage not to do washing on weekends? What about uniform!!!

They have 3 sets of trousers/shirts/skirts so no reason to wash instantly. I'll often manage to wash the uniform as it's Friday stuff but I try to avoid washing and doing alot of household stuff if we have kids on a weekend, unless the weather has been rubbish during the week.I'm not someone who does loads of washing anyway. Most things get a couple of days wear out of them and I only wash towels etc weekly. If we're doing alot of sporting stuff then I wash more as I don't like damp sporting stuff hanging around.
If kids are seeing their dad Sun evening he'll often have a combination of some washed and ironed clothes, some washed but not ironed and sometimes still damp stuff and some needing washed stuff given to him. He'll do the same to me as he's not a washing and ironing fanatic either.

I rarely iron - although my other half in in the forces - and does .

Hmmm I think I would like to to come and organise my life for me - were you a PA in a former life?

is in the forces...

ans would like you to

The problem with gifts though is when the kids take them back to their mums (which we dont see as their 'home' which is where our situation is different. DSDs home is as much home here as it is at her mums) their mum wont let them bring them back so everyone was buying gifts/toys/clothes at a crazy rate because they kept going back to mums and never appearing again.

But shes with us a lot so never had to wait 2 weeks to have her things. I can see if he's only there once every 2 weeks he's not going to want to leave toys there.