Well besides being a sm I am a bm.

My sons dad has had 2 girlfriends who have been close to my son. They both watched my son at times because of my exs work schedule changing during his visitation. One of them even watched my son when he was sick one day becuase I could not take that particular day off work becuase of stuff I really couldn't miss, and his dad had no sick days. The girlfriend was off work and offered to take our son, I was very appreciative!

If your a big part of his dads life then your going to be a big part of A_'s life. I think its great that A_ wanted to spend time with you.

Before my dh and I lived together I watched his kids a few times when he got stuck working extra hours. They could have stayed with their grandma but actually asked to stay with me. It made me happy that they liked me so much :)
And I think A_ asking to still see you while his dad was away goes a long way to showing how important you are to A_.

I think its great!

I think it all depends on how the child's mother feels about it. I think the grandmother should have called the mother to ask her before saying it was ok for the boy to stay overnight with you. What if one of his friends asked you if he could stay overnight, and then you said yes, and then another friend invited them over, and the first friend's mother said ok, etc. - it could take the mother hours to find him. As a mother, I want to know where my children are every night.

As a mom, I agree with theotherside that I would want to know where my child is. However, when my son was with his dad, his dad let him stay over at other people's homes (cousins, friends) and I wasn't consulted. If I let him stay at a friends, I didn't call his dad. It wasn't that big a deal. I don't think that either of us would have let him stay anywhere that we didn't feel he would be safe. I would also assume that in Ceph's case, Grandma wouldn't let her grandchild go into an unsafe situation.

I agree with mom2emall, I think it says a lot of how he feels about you that he asked. I don't think it's weird at all. In fact, my daughter has spent time with my ex's new wife on a couple of occasions. They've gone shopping at the mall together. It was a little weird for me, but she didn't mind at all. I think it's selfish for a mom to deny their child an opportunity to have someone in their life that can be a positive role model and someone that they can enjoy a good relationship with, just because of their own feelings or discomfort.

To be honest TOS, I expected that you would give me heck for seeing A__ while my BF is gone... I'm pleasantly surprised by that your concern was just that Grandma perhaps should have called Mom. That you didn't immediately object to it in principle makes me think that if BM decides she has some problem with it, my opinion will be she can sit on a tack.
BF has also told me that there has been a number of times that BM has said "Hey, I don't like that you do ____" to Grandma. Grandma has said "Tough. If you don't like how I do things, stop leaving your son with me all the time and raise him yourself"
(Not that she shouldn't get a say in how A__ is dealt with by his other caregivers, just that the history is Grandma telling BM to stuff it)

A small rant, related to this topic:
My BF is out of the country for two weeks, and so is his dad. So two of A__'s caregivers are gone. BM's mom has also booked a trip near the end of this two weeks (a four day overlap before my BF and his dad get home)... Leaving a brief period that three of A__'s caregivers will be gone.
When her mom booked this trip, BM called my BF and b!tched and moaned about it. I overheard through the phone "What the h3ll am I going to do? I'm going to have to take care of A__ all by myself for four days because everyone is leaving me all at once!"
I desperately wanted to grab the phone and say "Listen up lady, most people care for their own children for not just four days at a time, but weeks, or even months on end! It's called being a parent. Stop being so bratty and selfish!"
But I didn't.

I desperately wanted to grab the phone and say "Listen up lady, most people care for their own children for not just four days at a time, but weeks, or even months on end! It's called being a parent. Stop being so bratty and selfish!"

yeah, I had years on end with no help. jeez, four days is a day in the park. lmao

Another question about all this...
I mentioned that A__ had a lot of questions about the flood situation. He asked a lot on the phone, and then asked a lot more when we went to the hockey game and when he came over to my place.

My BF and I had talked on flood day about what our plan will be for the few months that his place is under reconstruction: he will stay here, as will the cat, and we will continue to have A__ for the same amount of time. My main concern was that he sometimes lets A__ run a little wild at his place and there's often a lot of destruction in his wake, but I'm not keen on my place getting trashed every weekend. He said that he will make sure that he's doing more with A__, to keep him from destroying. I'll be holding him to this.

So, like I said, I could tell that A__ was very worried about how things will go and how he will fit into the scheme of reconstruction... He mellowed out as I answered all his questions, ranging from "Is my Tamagochi OK?" to "Will I only get to see my dad during the day on weekends now?" to "What is there for me to do at your house?"
I wasn't quite sure though if I should be answering all this or not... If my BF was here, I'd have him take the lead, but he isn't...

What would you have done if you were in my situation? Would you have answered all the questions? Or said "Dad will talk about it with you when he gets home in a week and a half"?

In that situation, I probably would just reassure him that it will be okay and tell him that when his dad comes back, he can answer all those questions. Kids like to know what to expect and this is probably a big deal to him. I don't think it would be wrong to tell him what he can do at your house. I think it's a good time to set down your house rules so he has time to think about it. But questions specific to time he will spend with his dad should be saved for his dad. IMO

ima,

If, while your son was with his father, his father left him with his grandmother, I assume his father would want to know if the grandmother let him go somewhere else overnight. The parent who has custody/visitation at the time needs to know where her or his children are.

I think the mother would have every right to be upset with the grandmother for not consulting her before letting the boy spend the night at Ceph's house, or anywhere else for that matter. If the grandmother doesn't want to take care of the child, she has the option to refuse, but she doesn't have the right to pawn off the child to someone else without the mother's consent.

And I hope all of you whose children actually have grandparents who are still alive realize how lucky you are - and not just because they come in handy for babysitting purposes. Luckily a very generous friend of mine offered to go see my daughter's grandparents day concert, or she would have been just about the only one there without anyone (parents were not allowed to attend).

i think dad can explain what's going to happen while he is in your house. Just in case A uses something like: ceph said i can live with you, or can come every day etc. To avoid confusion wait until your BF comes back.

as about seeing A while BF is gone... it is prefectly fine as long as parents are aware. So next time grandma should consult with mom, if mom is OK then why not?

FD, yes if both parents are fine with it, its fine. Sometimes the act of just asking, instead of assuming, helps smooth over things. Frankly I dont like to talk to my X, so I just shoot him an email whenever I need to give him an update.

Just to clarify, BM knew that A__ was going to a hockey game with me, because it had been planned in advance. She gave the OK on that after my BF pointed out "Ceph spends every weekend with him, and does lots with him, it will be weird for A__ to not see her for so long, and seeing Ceph will keep him in his routine of seeing me on the weekends"

The hockey game goes until almost 10 pm, so we generally keep A__ afterwards, rather than wind him up at a hockey game and drop him with someone else to wind down for bedtime (that would simply be rude)... So BM knew he was with me for the game, and precedent is that he stays with BF and I after games. BM is quite intelligent, so even if Grandma didn't TELL her about overnight, I suspect she'd have called me if she was looking for A__ (both BM and Grandma have my home and cell numbers).

We've bonded a little over the flood (I needed her help tracking someone down and she wanted to know what was going on with everything), and she's been better towards me lately, so *cross fingers* she won't mind if Grandma didn't tell her about overnight.
If she's upset about overnight, my real opinion will be that she can sit on a tack, but my words will be "I'm sorry, I thought Grandma had cleared that with you before he asked me. Had I known, I would have suggested checking with you first. But he was really well-behaved and we had a good time, so it was no trouble from my end at all!"
(And yes, I know that's quite two-faced of me, but telling her I think she can sit on a tack if she doesn't like having me around would be counterproductive)

Ceph, I don't think it's such a big deal and I hope his mom doesn't mind. and I don't call it two faced, it's called damage control. (and the grown up thing to do) and the grown up thing for her to say is 'I'm glad he had a good time but next time, I'd appreciate a phone call.' even if she feels like blasting you.

and TOS, if my son's grandmother was in charge and she let him stay at his cousin's (which I'm sure might have happened at least once), I don't see a big deal. It would bother me if the kid went from friend to friend and I had to go looking for him, but that's not what happened. And I don't agree that my son's father would have had a problem if his mom let his son go to his brothers/sisters house to spend the night with his cousins. (maybe if he had gone to the neighbor kids' house, he might have cared more) but I wouldn't leave my child with a grandparent whose judgment I didn't trust. In Ceph's case, BM left the child with the only caregiver she had left since dad & grandpa are out of town, so grandma was 'stuck' and in my humble opinion, if she would have exercised that option to refuse to keep her grandson, BM would have either thrown a fit, been very upset or might have called Ceph herself since she had plans to leave town and NEEDED someone to take care of her son. She knows Ceph and that she gets along with her son, so if she has a problem with him spending the night, it has more to do with her own personal dislike (if any) of Ceph than a concern for her child's health & safety.

Frankly, I can't help but feel that someone who b!tches and moans about having to care for her own child for four whole days, isn't really going to give a toss about who looks after him, as long as it's someone else.
I think you're doing great, ceph.

Collen read my mind. I would appreciate a head's up from grandma if my child wasn't going to be where I left him, but it seems that this particular mom just wants to make sure it isn't her caring for him. I also trust "grandma" enough to know that if she made a decision in my absence she would not do anything to put my child in harms way.

I think it is perfectly fine that you have him while his dad is away, and wonderful that you opted to. I also think it's just fine to give vague answers to A_ about the future, but leave the specifics to dad just because he may not have them all ironed out and you don't want to give an answer that may not be correct.

Still laughing about the 4 days. Oh, the poor dear.

"And I don't agree that my son's father would have had a problem if his mom let his son go to his brothers/sisters house to spend the night with his cousins. (maybe if he had gone to the neighbor kids' house, he might have cared more)"

I have to wonder if your son's father would have had a problem if his mom let his son go to your BF's house when you weren't around without consulting him first.

i just thought about.. what if we would be talking about young girl, her dad and her mother's BF (not living- in BF)?

How would that be different? Let's say mom is out of town, dad drops his minor daughter at his mom's house. In a meanwhile mom's BF calls grandma and says "let me take a little girl and she will spend a night at my house." grandma says "sure, take her". Keep in mind there is no other children at the hosue, no cousins, no one besides this BF>

and when dad calls at night to talk to his daughter, grandma says : "oh your exGF's BF came over and took her to spend a night in his house." I wonder what would be dad's reaction....I suspect not a pleasant one.

maybe because we are talking about a woman and a boy not a guy and a girl we are less alarmed about this kind of situation.

definitelly if I leave my kid at grandmas i expect her be there or somewhere else WITH grandma, unless of course i authorized something diffefent. But this BM in question doesn't seem to be too concerned where her kid is. Luckily ceph is a decent reliable person, but what if grandma let's him go to somebody else next time...

theotherside, he lived two hours away from me and my BF lived with me so he knew my son stayed with my BF when I was working. I don't think he'd have minded my son being with my BF. He might have minded if was taking away from his time.

fine, you make a good point. I think each situation would be handled or thought of differently depending on the players and situation as a whole. I think the same way, that in Ceph's case, BM probably isn't concerned unless it just gives her a reason to pitch a fit with Ceph. She depends on a handful of other people to take care of ONE child. I say it's no big deal...

finedreams,

I agree that if the situation were reversed, with the mother's BF asking to have the child (girl or boy) spend the night at his house, it would go beyond weird and into really creepy. Even in cases where you are not worried about sexual assault, if you leave a child in someone's care you expect them still to be in that person's care when you come to pick them up. The grandmother should have called the mother first. It would have been the responsible thing to do.

Ok, hearing about grandma's history with BM, & BM's history, I don't really think there is going to be a problem considering BM was PO'd that she was going to have to deal with A__ for 4 days alone.

Maybe grandma should have called and said "hey obnoxious daughter of mine who can't take responsibility for her own child, I'm letting A__ spend the night with Ceph." Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Either way the end result was good for A__, he feels better knowing his stuff is ok and that his dad (and himself) aren't going to be stuck in a water-logged apartment trying to get by. He also got to see his Ceph who he seems quite attached to and vice versa.

I say kudos to Ceph.

I still can't figure out why anyone is giving Ceph crap for something SHE didn't do - grandma did. Regardless of whether g-ma was right or wrong, Ceph was doing a great thing in letting A_ know her attachment isn't just with his dad.
It's like punishing my SD for something my DS did. Kinda taking it out on the wrong person, don't you think?

If it had been me, I would have made sure that the grandmother cleared it with the mother before allowing the boy to stay overnight.

Glad you've made that abundantly clear TOS. Thanks for that!

The only "one" who wants to spend any time with the child is being blasted because mom wasn't consulted ... the mom dropped the kid off at grandmas and grandma gladly accepted ceph's invite ... and ceph gets blasted?

If mom could only deal with her own kid for 4 days in a row none of this would have even been an issue.

I cannot imagine my parents calling me or my brother obnoxious kids because they get to spend time with our children. Many grandparents enjoy spending time with their grandkids and are close to them. It is called being a family. Grandparents are family.

there is nothing wrong with what ceph did. she asked if we think it is OK, and everyone says it is OK as long as parents know where kids are, that's all. Nobody accuses her of anything.

How many times did mom call to check up on A_____ while he was in your care?

most SMs insist that it is wrong for BMs to constantly call the other parent when children are there, it interfers with visitations.

and didn't BM think that child is with grandma rather than dad's GF? And if parents know that children are with other reliable family memebers, why do they have to constantly check on them? Nobody had to check on DD when she was in my care.

Oh, see this wasn't even during the four days that she has to take care of A__ all by herself... That's not until this upcoming Sunday to Wednesday!
A__ asking to stay at my place happened last weekend... Which is the weekend that BM decided last minute to leave the province and brought A__ over to her mom's place.
He asked to come over again this weekend, but I'll make sure BM is directly addressed if it happens.

I've said it before, but BM isn't a "bad" mom, and she's not a nightmare of an ex to deal with, she can just be selfish and narcissistic from time to time. I'd like to see her take more responsibility for her own son, instead of always dumping him on her mom (or whoever else happens to be available), but she's not all bad by any means!
I don't wish any ill-will on her... but sometimes like her to be less of a pain in my butt and be a little more reasonable instead.

"most SMs insist that it is wrong for BMs to constantly call the other parent when children are there, it interfers with visitations."

Who are these evil women? When my SD was going to moms one week, then one week with us, her mom would call her two or three times during the week. Okay, she actually called DH while he was still at work and ask to talk to SD (hmmm knowing SD was not at work with him) and when i asked him why doesn't he call SD on mom's weeks, just to say goodnight or whatever, he'd say that's her time. He didn't want to interrupt it. He was annoyed that BM would call him on his time.

Personally, as a SM, I think BM should call her daughter at least every other day (if not every day) since she left. I still find SD in her room crying because she misses her mom and it's been six months. I let her call her mom whenever she wants but she usually gets a voice mail. In my opinion as a mom, I would call my child at least every couple of days. Not just to check up on them, but to let them know I'm thinking about them. I don't think it's as big a deal if it doesn't bother either of them to not talk on the phone. In one case on here, a daughter doesn't want to talk to her mom on the phone but the mom wants to talk to her, in my SD's case, she wants to talk to her mom all the time but her mom is never available. If you have a mom & child that are both happy with the amount of calls, then it doesn't really matter how frequent they are.

I don't remember the names but some SMs were saying that when BM constantly calls the other parent it interfers with visitations and somebody was even talking about addressing it in court.

well, it can be disruptive depending on the circumstances. If one parent constantly calls the child during visitation, it CAN create conflict. BM had her daughter call us constantly on our honeymoon. When it's done for the purpose of being annoying (and they are using the child to harass or annoy) then it is a problem. If it's done with the intention of maintaining a good relationship with the child, then it's not a problem. If the child doesn't want to talk and the parent insists on it, then it isn't going to make their relationship better by forcing it.

it's also a funny coincidence that SD's mom doesn't call her during the week, but has SD call us on Friday nights when she has her. (do you think she knows that Friday nights are 'date night'?) Of course, when SD tells her mom we are going out to dinner or doing something, THAT is when BM calls to talk to SD. But, I'm sure it's just a coincidence that she called three times on Saturday while we were out shopping & having dinner. (it was our only weekend with her)

this woman does nothing right in your eyes. calls-wrong, doesn't call-wrong.

haha ima --

When we were on our honeymoon (we went to Jamaica) we gave SS the # of our hotel in case of emergencies...BM (not the kids) called seven times a day (over absolutely nothing)...then wants us to pay her international phone bill when we got back!!

"I don't remember the names but some SMs were saying that when BM constantly calls the other parent it interfers with visitations and somebody was even talking about addressing it in court."

It can interfere. In our situation if BM didn't get her way or wanted to 'argue' more or had been drinking she wouldn't just call -- she would call literally 20 times in a row until we unplugged the phone....never took any court action over that aspect but it did come up when she lost custody.

She called me precisely 0 times. I assume she called Grandma precisely 0 times, but can't say for sure...
She's left A__ at BF's place for "the night" on a Friday and then we haven't heard a peep from her until Sunday 7 pm when BF called her to say "Uh, where should we take A__?" so I assume 0.

"this woman does nothing right in your eyes. calls-wrong, doesn't call-wrong."

See it how you like finedreams, but she doesn't call her daughter when the daughter wants her to and doesn't call her back when she leaves her a message, so yeah.. she's wrong to do that to her daughter.

She calls DH at work & asks for her daughter when she knows her daughter isn't at work with him, meanwhile her daughter is at home and would love her to call at the house, so yeah... she's wrong or maybe it's more about staying engaged with DH than talking to her daughter? You think that's reasonable?

She calls or has her daughter call us repeatedly on our honeymoon and when she knows we're on a date night (and just has to pick up SD late when she knows we have other plans) but expects us to be on time or early... tell me how that's right?

When she does something right, I will be so happy and excited for SD! Actually, she has gone two whole weeks where she picked up her daughter from school on time... It's a record. I think that's grand!

and sieryn, she wanted YOU to pay the bill??? LMAO!

So I'm taking A__ to his soccer game tonight. I talked to Grandma about it, because I couldn't get in touch with BM...
When I was talking to Grandma, I said that I wanted to be sure that BM was OK with it, because I didn't want to step on anybody's toes by taking him to soccer or by that I had him last weekend to see a hockey game and that he spent the night. She said that she'd double check with BM that it was OK for me to take him to soccer, even though BM had already said I was taking him.
So she called back a few hours later, she had just talked to BM who said that it was perfectly OK and that she had no problem with it.

It would have been ideal to have talked to BM directly, but she wasn't home. Also, since I'm picking A__ up from Grandma's house, it's good that Grandma got the OK from BM, not just a second-hand "Yeah, she says it's fine" from me.

I have to retract my earlier statement "Actually, she has gone two whole weeks where she picked up her daughter from school on time... It's a record. I think that's grand!"

It couldn't last forever.... but two weeks is something to be proud of I suppose. It's better than NEVER. (she sent DH a text at work to have HIM call the school and tell them to keep SD in the office because she's running late. She didn't say how late. He sent her a text with the school phone number & told her to call them herself.)