Delegating Gone Good

It seemed like a fine idea from the onset. But the nights following the idea my nights were becoming quite tumultuous. You'd probably think I was pondering some life altering decision like getting married or relocating my family to another state. Nope, not so. What was weighing on my mind so heavily was whether or not to allow my ex-husband to attend our son's school field trip?

Whoa! Whoa! Before you pounce on me let me explain my position. Although I'm not a dead beat dad basher, in my posts you could probably still gather that I am of the single parent status. Ever since our divorce after our first child was born my ex has never been a hands on kind of father. Even after we reconciled, had a second child together and divorced again, he's never stepped up his game with being an involved parent though he promised he would. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. The extent of his parental involvement has been from his semi-regular financial support and the occasional fun outings when he is so gracious as to share his off days with his children.

So, anyway, it's the beginning of the school year AND the near end of the calendar year, which leads to the reason why I needed my ex to go on this field trip in the first place. I'M OUT OF VACATION TIME!!! While my ex is always screeching about how he doesn't get any time off from his job I've always taken note of how he's off whenever he needs to go to court and stuff so I've always known he could get a day off with advance notice so I decided to call him on it and lo and behold he said okay. From that moment on I started wondering if I'd done the right thing.

For starters, our son was NOT going to be happy about this change in the game plan. Sure, his grandfather had chaperoned one of his field trips in Pre-K, but it's always been mom at his side (not that he'd been on that many field trips but I'm the one who's always been there). The last thing he expected or wanted was his dad to be there. "Mom, he's going to embarrass me," were the words of my son when I told him his dad was going on the trip. I translated his comment into, "My dad is going to yelling at me and being mean and my friends are going to be laughing at me." I'm almost sure that's what he meant.

In the back of my mind I was hoping (praying on occasion) that my ex backed out then that way I could do what I had to do and go on the field trip. At the same time, however, I was steadily trying to convince myself that he had just as much of an obligation to use his personal time from work for his children. After all, where do you think the majority of my vacation time went: doctors' appts, dentists appts, parent-teacher conferences, and other school functions. So in essence, it was about time he was doing something and I needed to be glad for it.

The field trip was yesterday. And down to the wire my son tried to coax me into going with him even if his stand still went. He just wanted his mom :)) In the end, I was steadfast in letting dad do his due dilegence and when I saw my son when I got off work he looked just as happy as when I dropped him off at school. I was like, "Cool. He had a good time." Then he looked up at me with those big beautiful brown eyes and said, "Mommy, can you go on my next field trip please?"