The report from the front and the single mom

Well, my ex's visit has come and gone -- and frankly gone a lot better than I expected. My son spent the past two weekends with his father and handled it exceedingly well.

For the first weekend, I specifically avoided calling to talk to my son. His time with his daddy should be fairly uninterrupted time with his daddy, I thought, and so with great effort, I put the phone down.

While it was torturous for me, I figured it was in my son's best interest for me to keep my distance since he tends to get needy and whiny when he "remembers" he misses me. That hunch turned out to be right when I finally called Sunday morning, at which point he immediately launched into, "I want yooouuuu," complete with tearful voice and plaintive whining.

(An aside to this tale: my family and I had a big boating trip on the Intracoastal Waterway planned for that weekend, which my son obviously did not get to join us for. I had planned on -- and was succeeding in -- keeping it a secret so that he didn't feel left out. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.

As soon as I got on the phone that Sunday morning, my niece, who was on the trip with us, blurted out that she wanted to talk to my son. I didn't hear what she said to him, but I'm guessing she spilled the beans because as soon as I picked my son up on Sunday, he launched into a scathing criticism. "You went to the beach without me. That's not fair! I wanted to go to the beach!"

I didn't even get a "Hi, Mommy" or anything, just complaints. "But you got to spend the weekend with Daddy," I offered as some comfort. My ex would have cringed to hear how quickly his son blew that off as completely irrelevant and downright boring compared to going on the boat with his cousin.

I fielded these sort of comments for a solid hour before I finally put my foot down and told him I wasn't going to talk about it anymore.)

The second weekend with his father (this past weekend) went fine as well. I again stayed away from the phone for the most part and was pleased that I didn't get any wailing bedtime calls ("But I want you, Mommy. I want to come home."), as I have during past visits.

My ex actually delivered my son directly to my mom on Sunday afternoon. (My parents had taken a long weekend to go camping and were keeping my son Monday while he was out of school for Fall Break and I was still at work.) Mom said that he was a little whiny and pouty while he was with them, but he was pretty well back to his normal self after a good night's sleep Monday night and a day off with me Tuesday (Fall Break continued).

So, all in all, good news to report for the ex's visit. No temper tantrums. No crying jags. No newfound defiant streak (sometimes a symptom of the daddy visits). I'm counting my blessings.