Items 1 and 2

I need to get this out of my head. My ex is being the classic crazy-maker and I need to see how completely ridiculous all of this is before I drive myself nuts.

Item 1:

Apparently, his fiancee's mother was a an early education teacher that has retired recently. She has seen Payton on several occasions now and has expressed to my ex that she is extremely worried about Payton being ready for kindergarten in the fall of 2011. She does not feel that in any way shape or form is a half day of preschool enough for him to be prepared to succeed in kindergarten. I have to say here that I don't completely disagree with her. I am worried myself. No doubt. However - I do feel that Payton is in the best possible environment at the current preschool he is going to. He attends the local public elementary school where all of the teachers are trained Special Education teacher and therapists. Payton receives Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy and Adaptive P.E. right there in the school. It's all there. He will attend the afternoon kindergarten-prep class this coming school year.

His soon to be mother-in-law thinks that he needs to attend a full day of preschool to be completely prepared. Again - I do not completely disagree with this statement. However... full day preschools are crazy expensive and he will not be getting early intervention services like he does in the public schools. The smallest child to teacher ratio I found was about 12:1. Payton is currently getting attention at a ratio of 3:1. Preschools start at $600.00 a month on up to $1,200.00 a month plus a $450.00 supply fee, a $150.00 application fee and a down payment of two months of classes. There is no way I can swing that financially and if my ex is telling the truth, there is no way he can swing that, either.

Payton also attends a fully accredited and licensed mainstream preschool right now. I use it as a daycare for when I work. The learning environment is much more lax in the summer and they are gearing up for this next academic year. The kids who attend this preschool are amazing. They are way ahead of Payton though they are roughly the same age. Payton loves this place and is doing well there. My ex has flat-out refused to pay for half of it as I am using it on my parenting time, yet he wants to put him in a costly full-time program that rips him away from the services he's getting for free from the city and a preschool environment that he is already accustomed to.

All of this based on his future mother-in-law's recommendation and I have no idea what it is in detail.

Now keep in mind that I am forbidden to speak to his fiancee - or more like she was given strict orders never to converse with me ever again, so I am going to assume here that I will be forbidden to speak with her mother as well. So my ex wants me to pay out the nose for a preschool based on the recommendation by someone I have never met nor be allowed to converse with. Right. Gotcha, ex-hole.

The other kicker in this is that I have been doing research on local preschools including Montessori schools and sending the ex links and asking questions as to what this woman has said exactly and he has given me nothing in response. No return e-mails, no texts, no ideas, no thoughts, nothing except telling me that he wants him in a full day preschool. AND... if he follows his logic on refusing to pay for the preschool Payton is in now, he will refuse to pay for the uber-expensive one. Killer. Rock on. Good times.

All of this is not to say that I am completely opposed to the idea (save the monster tuition). I just need to be shown that it is all in Payton's best interest. So far I have zero input from the other camp and what I have found on my side is no better than the schooling setup Payton currently has at a fraction of the cost. I also want to hear what the teachers and therapists at his current Special Needs preschool have to say about the curriculum for the upcoming school year and what Payton's goals are to be. Beyond that, I want to know what the process is for kindergarten in 2011. We do not have all the information we can get from the sources in the know with our current situation. I think we need to give them a fair shake before we go changing everything and spending so much money on something that will get us to a similar or lesser result.

The ex had expressed that he did not want to "lawyer this out" and that we needed to deal with this on our own. Well guess what. Not happening. It may be a moot point once we hit our court date in a few weeks, but my lawyer has been kept informed of everything that has transpired.

Item 2:

The second item on the agenda is Payton's schedule. From the get-go Tony and I have been more than willing to sit down with my ex and come up with a schedule that works for all parties involved that transfers Payton around as few times as possible, that keeps the 60/40 timeshare agreement, that gives both households good quality time and that keeps Payton calm and well. Every time the topic of schedule comes up, the ex freaks out and shuts it down saying that I am not wanting to discuss it. It got thrown back at me so often that finally a judge had to decide. What the judge decided on sucks. I lost weekends with Payton and it's been a bear for during the week. There is a great solution and it just needs to be discussed. I have never ever refused to talk about it. It's all in e-mails. Every singe time the ex pulls the plug on negotiations and blames me. Every time.

So last night I got an e-mail asking for a small change. Sure. You know what? I really want to change this up without a judge involved and I would love my every other weekend back. I wrote up a plan and I think it is settling out at 60/40 (it's at 61/39 with our current schedule, so he would get a percentage back - generous, right??). I'm sending it to my lawyer to check if the percentages are correct as I am calculating blindly then I will show it to you and we can be flexible with it shifting it one way or the other.

The response? None. Today? Still none.

Ugh.

I have no idea what to think, other than to know deep down in my gut never to trust this man again. I have no idea what he is scheming if anything at all, but you can bet that my lawyer has everything and will deal with it. I have found in the past that if the ex asks that a lawyer not be involved, it means some sort of manipulation of me. It's just not going to happen again.