“She’s just 4 years old.  Don’t take it personally.” 

This is what I’m often reminded, by my girlfriend, my mom and even myself, at least a few times per week.  And deep down, I know that they’re right.  I shouldn’t take offense to the fact that my little princess doesn’t really like to talk on the phone, she really is just 4.  I suppose it’s partly my fault for blocking my work calendar at 3:30 pm every day, to take the elevator downstairs and out front of my office building, to try to call her, knowing that this is the time of day that she should be riding home from daycare (she’s two time zones “ahead” of me), in the back of her mom’s car, presumably with nothing better to do than chat with me.  You’d think sooner or later I’d realize that with a 1-out-of-5-or-so success rate of her actually answering the phone to take my call, that my expectations would be appropriately set and I’d call less frequently, or at least I’d wait for her to call me.  But no, like a teenage boy with a high school crush, I make the trek down the elevator every single work day at the same time, only to find myself making a 180-degree turn right back up to the 6th floor, just a couple of minutes later, 80% of the time.

Such is the current state of my… (More)

When someone tells me they are getting a divorce and the other parent will be getting physical custody of the child(ren), there is one piece of advice I always give them. It is : Make your parenting plan EXACTLY what you want no matter how wonderful your relationship with the other parent is right now, no matter how idealistic your views of co-parenting may be… plan for the worst.

My ex and I split quite peacefully. There was some pain and hurt – but we were friends. We wanted our son to always have both parents. We wanted to cooperate and co-parent even though we were separated. We had a verbal agreement and even went so far as to take it to an attorney to make it official (we thought “WOW… that’s a stretch… make it legal?! We don’t need to do all that, do we?”).

Then his mother and then, girlfriend got involved. Oddly, the attorney disappeared along with the written agreement. Suddenly, he simply was not going to give me my son, as we had agreed. He filed for divorce again, this time claiming abandonment. That was, of course, overturned and we went through the legal process and got a parenting plan in place. I fought tooth and nail to get stuff into the parenting plan that we had previously agreed upon. Things he had ASSURED me he thought were in the best interest of our son only months before.

Later, once everything was… (More)