Help good people of the Step family forum. I am so frustrated right now. This is probably just going to be a rant but I really just dont understand BM.

So I am engaged to my boyfriend who has a wonderful 7 year old little boy. WeÂve been together for almost four years so we are pretty much have been a family unit for awhile. We get him every other weekend and then for dinner on Wednesdays. The custody agreement also has a holiday schedule - rotating every other year. There is also a vacation period set up for each of the parents.

Up until this week, we have had a very cordial relationship with BM. Actually we don't have much contact with her at all. All contact is through email and her dad handles all the custody exchanges. So basically we get an email from BM today and she has interpreted the custody agreement in a very creative way for the Christmas Holidays. In the custody agreement each parent is allowed to take 2 "one week" vacation period with the son that supersedes the normal parenting schedule but cannot supersedes the holiday schedule. We usually take one in the summer and one during the holidays but still not interfering with her holiday time as stated in the agreement. .

The custody agreement clearly defines the start and end times of the specific holidays but she has somehow convinced herself that any normal parenting time during the holidays is also a special time and therefore the vacation schedule should not infringe on the other parents time. Obviously if we want to use one of our vacation periods with him it is going to infringe on her normal parenting time, since only twice a year we get him for a whole week! This agreement is 3 years old - so her new interpretation of the agreement is surprising.

She is basically requesting the week that we have normally taken in the past during the holidays. No argument there, she got the request in first. And really her requested vacation period is already a part of her normal parenting time since she has him 80% of the time anyway. It just prevents us from taking that time. It just really irks me how she is saying that in the future she will not be granting vacation time during the holidays. The custody agreement does not say that she gets to decide when we use our vacation time, just that each parent must give the other 30 days notice. I gotta give her props though for getting this to us in September, I haven't even thought about Christmas yet!

I guess the next step is to send her an email and litigate with her the interpretation of the agreement. I hope we don't have to go to court over this just cause of the costs involved in doing that. Quite frankly it would be stupid for her to want to go to court over this since it is quite obvious the way she is interpreting the agreement is not what it says. A bigger reason though is in our county the parties continue to go before the same judge for any future court actions - and she knows the judge is not really happy with her past actions. She goes into court with a pretty expensive attorney; fiancé goes to court on his own and has yet to lose a court hearing. Apparently she sent a letter to the bar association and asked the judge to be removed from the case since he is "obviously biased against mothers." No, he is not biased against mothers; he is biased against her for her self-righteous, selfish, parental alienation behavior. I would be scared as hell if I were her to go back to court for anything. He told her in court at one of the custody hearings (that is how we found out), that he was not going to remove himself from the case just because she didnÂt like how he ruled.

Anyway we are so more that willing to work with her on vacation schedules and even holiday special events. WeÂre just not really willing to give up any parenting time since we have so little time with him anyway and that is a battle we will fight until the end. I really want to do what is this kidÂs best interest and I realize that is to make special memories with both parents during the holidays  it just is so frustrating that BM canÂt see that too.

I guess I also need to keep it in perspective that if this is the worst thing we have to deal with than things aren't that bad right?