The ex has never abided by our agreement which states that he is supposed to give me his intended plans for summer visitation by May 1.  It has never happened in the seven years we have been divorced. This has never surprised me because he has always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants guy, but it is problematic.

This year, we hadn’t heard much from him since April. A week or so ago, he texted me to inform me that his dad had been diagnosed with stage 5 Alzheimer’s, and as a result, he wanted The Boy for the last week in July so that he might be able to see him before it’s too late.

While I feel absolutely awful for my ex-father-in-law, as he is and was rather a sweet guy, our plans for the summer have already been made, and a huge part of that summer includes camp for The Boy.  He has always looked forward to summer camp and ESY as a highlight of his year, and when I asked him if he would prefer to go to Dad’s and miss camp, he said he thought his dad needed to make some other arrangements.  Out of the mouths of babes.

I informed the ex that the last week in July was out, but we would be happy to discuss times when The Boy was not in camp or in school, which left a few weeks in July and exactly one week in August.

He obviously couldn’t get his act together in time to make anything happen in July, but expressed interest in the one week in August, the last week before school.  If you know any child on the spectrum, you know that transitions like going back to school are a huge, huge deal, and just contemplating The Boy making a long trip in that week was making my head hurt.  But I knew in my heart of hearts that probably nothing would come if it anyway – sad, I know.

Sure enough, the ex wanted to bring him back on the first day of school, and I explained that that would not work at all.  He responded by suggesting The Boy fly by himself within an airline assistance program…

Uh… yeah, right.

How friendly are these skies, anyway?

In the past when he has suggested this, I have flat out said no.

This time, I didn’t.  I called his bluff.  He wants to pay for a plane ticket, pay extra for special assistance that in all probabliity isn’t even available, all when he is many hundreds of dollars behind on child support? I told him our limitations in terms of airlines that fly into this general area, and suggested he do some research to see if they were even available.  He said he would, and he was excited to have The Boy that week and be able to go camping with him.

Sigh.