The Juggling Act to Attend One Birthday Party..

I wake up to clean up the mess from the 4th of July... Grant my oldest son has Birthday Party to attend today at 11am. It is important that he go. He does not get invited to many since he does not many friends. He has Autism and he only has eight students in his class leaving the opportunity for invites few and far between. In order for this to happen, I must attend this party with him. I arrange for Helena to go to her Grandmother's for the day and I "farm out" Everett to my sister for the day. The preparation of packing activity bags for Helena, a DVR, lunch box, printing off directions and all of chaos that preceded leaving our home that morning made me feel like I was going into a battle field instead of child's birthday party.

We arrived at the party and Grant was having a great time and was so happy to be among his classmates. He had not seen many of them in nearly a month and it was evident that he had been missed. About a good thirty minutes into the party two of Grant's friends approached me while eating cake and asked me... "why didn't Grant come to Josh's birthday party?"... I could only respond... "Oh, he was with his dad that weekend... his dad lives very far away... " I could see the look of frustration in these two boys faces.. I quickly stated.. "but .. if it were up to Grant.... he would have come"..... the two boys looked at each other and seemed resolved. The second of the two boys.. stated.. "My, party was on a Sunday.. I was hoping Grant would have been able to come to my party because it was on a Sunday..." I stated that we did in fact get her son's birthday invitation too.. but that her son's party was on the 4th Sunday of the month. I sat there realizing that I am getting ambushed by Grant's classmates for not getting Grant to the Birthday Parties and I am explaining MY custodial visitation arrangements with two ten year olds! Of course none of this was done in front of Grant and what was more disrupting was that they might actually attribute Grant's non-attendance to their birthday parties as dislike towards them. These are the unfair realities of divorce that are so difficult for me to deal with and watch my kids have to burden.