Sorry it has been so long...

Jeez, time flies! I have been thoroughly enamored with Mister M's new forum, www.thepsychoexwife.com/forums/, plus I haven't been wanting to post any info that is still in the works, just in case.

Here's what I can update so far (more to come at the beginning of April)...

Winter Break - BM finally emailed us the info needed for the airline - big surprise, she hasn't even changed her Driver's License yet (it is still from FormerHomeState, even though she has been living in her new state for almost a year). The engine for our car died when we were en route to the airport, so we had 5 of us crammed into a friends Jeep Wrangler to get to the rental place where we rented a car to get them the rest of the way to the airport. The boys took off as scheduled - whew! The flight back had to be changed because BM refused to drive in a couple inches of snow, but it worked out well in the end since the boys were supposed to come back on different days, so with the rescheduling we got them both back on the same day. There was some concern about whether their flight would be canceled, not because of weather at BM's location, but because of weather at ours. But thankfully the flight took off, slightly delayed. Of course we had to drive in a snowstorm that dropped 9 inches in order to get them at the airport, but whatever! At least they were home. The first thing both of them said when they got off the plane was how BM had taken their Christmas money which her parents had sent them and used it to pay her rent. Lovely!

Court Proceedings - right before the boys were to leave, BM contacted DH saying she wanted to see if they could come to some sort of agreement. She stated that she was fine with DH having sole decision-making, but that she wanted the boys to be able to decide when to come see her on their vacations (she has it in her head that the boys should be with her for EVERY vacation period, for the whole time, essentially giving them zero time to vacation with us or spend non-school time with their friends). DH responded that he would prefer to wait to see how the winter break vacation went first before discussing it with her. After the boys got back, DH proposed that the boys would meet with him, her and their counselor before each break and a decision would be made between them as to where the boys would be for that break. She would get what she wanted, which was the potential for the boys to spend every vacation with her if they wanted, and we would know the boys would be accountable for what they were telling each of us about where they want to spend their time. Win, win - you'd think? Well, she got completely paranoid, and said she wanted a comment put in the order that DH would not pay the boys their airfare money to not see her. WTF? We realized at that point that there would never be any agreement good enough for her, and we certainly weren't going to encourage her paranoia, so DH responded back and simply told her that he was concerned with her paranoia and that he felt it would be better to have a third party involved (the GAL). So we have continued on with the GAL.

GAL - Our request for a new GAL was awarded, and the pretrial hearing was moved to the end of March to allow the new GAL time to get everything done. It took us over a month to get our $500 back from the uncertified GAL! So thankful the futures of our children are no longer in that woman's hands! We didn't tell the boys about the GAL until the day he came, SS1 was surprised, but SS2 didn't bat an eye, because BM had already been "working" him about it. Big surprise. The GAL had already spent a couple hours with us, and spent about an hour with each of the boys. After the March hearing, I'll be able to update you on the complete irony about the GAL and what his report will include - I can't wait!

Money - Since SS1's birthday in October, BM has been promising to send the boys money. In fact, she promised SS1 $500.00. Yeah, whatever! So ever since October we have had to listed to SS1's dreams of how he is spending the money. Ugghhh! So after Winter Break, and the boys realizing she needed their Christmas money to pay her rent, it seemed they had gotten over the illusion that she was sending any money. So about mid-January, BM started in on the sending money again. She told each of the boys she was sending them $200. So everyday they would ask, "Did the box come yet? Did the box come yet?" Week after week went by and no box. Again, big surprise. Excuse after excuse, and finally SS1 got fed up. He told her he was planning a snowmobile trip with some friends and that he needed the money by Monday (it was Friday night when he told her this). So she finally sends the money Western Union. The hysterical part is that there was no snowmobile trip! It was SS1's way to finally call her bluff and force her to follow through : ) Not that I'm proud of him for lying to her, but I'm glad all the years that they have learned manipulation from her, they are finally using it on her! Even funnier is the fact that they were calling BM about twice a week to find out the status of their "money box", but now that she has sent the money, they are totally blowing her off. She really only has the most superficial relationship with her kids.

So that is about all I can update on right now, but I'll post more early April to let you know what happened at the pretrial hearing.