He's baaacck! My ex-husband that is. He arrived home from Afghanistan for his two-week leave earlier this week and is, just as I'm typing these words, picking our son up from school to see him for the first time in about 8 or 9 months.
I've tried to hype the visit to my son so that he'll be excited about being picked up and carted away from his home and comfort zone by a veritable stranger. (I swear I've been more positive than that when talking to him.) And I was patting myself on the back a little for doing a decent job, it seemed, at balancing infusing a little excitement without loading him with too much expectation.
I made sure he knew exactly when and where he'd see his father so that nothing was unexpected. I used that happy, high-pitched voice parents use when they're trying to impose cheerfulness on their children (I make no bones about the game I've been playing and the obvious pretense involved. As much as I generally hate this phrase -- it is what it is).
And it was working. My son would cheer when we talked about his daddy picking him up from school and talk about getting to see his daddy soon to other people.
But then last night, the house of cards came tumbling down around me. About 30 minutes after I'd put my son to bed, he called for me. I went in to his room to find his lower lip quivering and his eyes welling on the verge of a real crying jag.
"What's wrong, baby?" I asked.
"I don't want to stay with my daddy all weekend," he wailed, bursting into tears. "I want to stay with you."
The plan was, has been, still is for my ex to pick my son up from school today and spend a few hours with him and then bring him home for the night. He'll then pick him up from school again tomorrow and keep him all weekend. It's an all-or-nothing arrangement for the weekend because I'll be out of town and unavailable to pick him up mid-weekend.
As I said, I'd been informing my son of the schedule so he knew what was coming. And what made him, after days of seeming excitement, break down into pitiful tears over the prospect, I have no idea.
I consoled him as best I could, reminding him that he was first going to see his father for just a little while and then come home. Still, it took several minutes to get him to calm down and drift back toward sleep.
I might normally shrug this off as a not-unexpected emotional reaction to all this change (and I'm not saying it's any more than that), but my son has been upset in the past about going to spend nights with his father, calling me in inconsolable tears at bedtime and frustrating my ex to no end. I know it hurts his feelings that his son wants to come home to me (as it naturally would anyone), and I'm not sure he has enough experience with the delicate emotions of a child to deal well with the situation.
For now, I don't think there's much to be done about it, at least from my end. I'll continue to encourage my son to be positive. I'll do my best to console him when needs be. I don't know that there's much else to do. Got any brilliant ideas? I'm open to suggestions.
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