Jenk, I don't think you're crazy at all. Sometimes in life we make sacrifices to get ahead. The first time we moved to the country as a young married couple (we both grew up in the city), we only lived there for 6 months and our mobile home burned to the ground. So we were 21 years old and homeless. We built our first home then. That county had no building codes, and we just winged it. We lived with his mother for a few months and moved in when the house was nothing but bare block walls. We heated with a wood stove made out of a 55 gallon barrel. It was so cold in there that the ice in the toilets froze in the winter!! But we survived, finished that house and later sold it, built a much larger one and sold that one and are now at the age of 50 we are building our forever home. When we moved from that big house into this little single wide, we bought a 40' long overseas shipping container to store our stuff in. I got a set of shelving from a Wal-mart going-out-of-business auction so everything we own is stored neatly in the container on shelves. Now the end of this build is finally in sight and we can soon move into the new house. And not a minute too soon.....I am getting WAY too old for this!! I laid a bunch of tile this weekend and don't remember getting so sore last time I did tile work. lol!

Sounds like things are heading in the right direction for your son. Things are tough for our young kids these days. I am sure that bankruptcy is not the path you would like for him to take but sometimes it is the best way. I hope each day gets better for him. It is great that you are there for him.. Maybe someday you two could take a drive and he could show you his work..

Yep sounds like a plan :-) We've had similar experiences with my (now) SD12 and SD14. It's exactly what Mattie says: SS knows it pleases BM if he has a bad time at your place. BM has done the same thing to my skids. By saying: "Are you ok babie?" in a worried voice and hugging the kids excessively they pick BM's anxiety up. "Something must be wrong, my mummy is so upset to leave me here". It doesn't take long to work out what the desired response is. And then there's the reward afterwards which seals the deal. SS's loyalty will be with BM simply because he lives with her and she's his main caretaker. It might make you feel better knowing that it's a normal and healthy response for SS. When I realised how it works I felt a lot better, knowing it's not personal. Because it's not. All you have to do is be supportive of SS when he's with you. I would stick to the court ordered time, as suggested by the other poster. And when he needs to call BM, or when she rings him and he feels bad after, have a chat to him. You can say "I understand you love your mum very much and it's ok to miss her. I'm sure your mom knows how much you love her, but we are happy to have you here too. I know how hard it can be, most of us do. Our BM does very similar things. She'll drop the kids off and keep them in the car in our driveway for a minimum of half an hour. Just to bring the 'goodbyes' and 'love you's' and 'miss you already!' to a hysterical level. Once that's achieved they can come into our house. Pfff. And (on a bad day) she'll call them 2 mins later while she's driving back, just to check if they're ok.. Again, pfff. You did say SS gets over the crying pretty quickly after he gets off the phone, so all is not lost! If you can comfort him and distract him a bit after then my guess is you'll be fine. Another thing I've learned is not to try and 'save' the skids anymore. My skids can do as they please at BM's, eat what they want, go to bed when they want, stay home from school, watch movies all day etc etc. At our place there are different rules, we eat meals together, they can't just grab what they want, when they want. We have a set bedtime and we don't rent 10 movies a week. But, it's unreasonable to expect the kids to totally change when they're with us. They are used to hanging in front of the tv, they don't play outside much. If this is what BM lets them do, we can't change that. Of course it's not great, but I can't save them from it either in the short time they're with us, you know what I mean? So we have to compromise. You could have a talk to SS, include him in the decision making. He'll feel more in control and less victimised. Also, he's more likely to accept the rules if he feels included in the process. For example tell him that you realise it must be hard for him to come to your place where there's different ways of doing things. And that you understand he sometimes wants to go back to moms because of it. Then tell him that you want to help him with this because you want everybody to be happy. Yyou could ask him to think about what he finds most difficult ("Do you miss your X-box, your friends, your favorite food/mums cooking etc"). Encourage SS to share what goes on inside him (hopefully he will). Then it's time to comprimise. For example you can tell him that the set bedtime is not negotiable, but maybe you can rent him some dvd's and he can watch one a day in the holidays. Or an extra hour of tv to what you'd normally do. Ask him for his favorite meal and if that is McDonalds maybe have it one day in the holidays, for lunch or dinner. Take a little and give a little. Good luck to you!

Sorry to hear that! Hand injuries can be so painful. I hope it heals quickly. If it does end up being a private pay, always ask for a discount. Every hospital I've ever dealt with has been prepared to grant a substantial discount when asked.