Mom reports:
As much as I would like to devote my attention to the new baby and not cause Tommy stress by interrupting his routines, I don’t feel comfortable sending Tommy to his birth father’s this summer. The man hasn’t called in 3 weeks and when he does call it is only when he is stuck in traffic and bored. He will stick Tommy in front of a computer and ignore him the whole visit. He barely knows his own children, visits them for 36 hours twice a year and doesn’t even call on birthdays or Christmas. He only gives gifts during his visits because he wants to make sure he gets “credit” for the gifts but he also tells the children that their main gift is his visit because it is so very expensive to have to come down here. Children shouldn’t hear such things. However, there is an additional problem this summer. Doug’s parents have offered to take the middle children (Sarah & Noah) to the beach for a week. I know they can’t handle Tommy but I also hate to see him always left out. Doug thinks that Tommy is only getting what he deserves but I feel like Tommy can’t help who he is and think that maybe this is not the year for the beach. But then again, that would be punishing the children who are good all year. Why does everything have to be so hard?