Allie is moving

We have had the worst week. I seriously think it ranks right up in one of the top five (maybe even three) worst weeks of my life.

On Saturday, January 23rd, Alex gets this email at work from Allie's mom. If you saw this email you would understand why when I think of this woman I feel utter hate. It was pretty much a "by the way" email, completely inappropriate for the news that it carried. The email said to the effect:

We are moving to California on Wednesday, January 27th. This is our new address. According to the visitation guidelines, you have the right to fly Allie out to see you once a month at your expense. Let me know if you will be exercising this right.

That's it. No, "Sorry for the short notice", no "what can I do to make it so you can spend time with your daughter before she leaves". I honestly think that initially, because she chose Wednesday which is Alex's normal mid-week visitation with Allie, that she was planning on leaving Wednesday morning and had no intention of even letting Alex see Allie before she left. This supposition is based on the fact that when Alex asked if he could have Allie from Wednesday morning and fly her to California on Sunday evening, Allie's mom said that they would instead leave on Thursday morning and that Alex could have her on Wednesday from 2:55 - 8:30 (his normal visitation time). Needless to say, her mom decided that we could have Allie from Thursday morning until Sunday, but this decision had nothing to do with Allie's mom's decency but more with the fact that Alex informed her that he would make her put Allie on a plane back here on Friday morning since he was still entitled to his one weekend a month. On top of that, her mom is refusing to drive to the LAX airport (an hour away), which would make the flights $100 - $150 less, and she is refusing to combine the days off school for President's Day weekend, insisting that a weekend starts on Friday and ends on Sunday. Unbelievable! She is ripping his daughter out of his life with pretty much no notice, he is maybe going to see Allie for two days a month and she is arguing over an additional two days!

We had her mom served with court papers on her way out of town on Thursday. The constable waited until Alex had Allie in his car (so her mom couldn't refuse to let Allie go with him) and then walked up to her and handed her the papers. I hate going to court. It costs a ton of money and nothing ever seems to happen because the judges will pretty much let the mother's do whatever they want. I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about all the money we spent fighting the homeschooling thing and the judge was too big of a wuss to do anything about it. Now, three years later (by the way, Allie is sixth grade age and she is below Katya when it comes to math - and Katya is probably on about a fourth grade math level), we are back in court. I have to just keep telling myself that it will be better in the long run and that perhaps the court will award him more visitation, make her pay for some of it, and force her to drive to the LAX airport. So, it has been a nightmare week. I think my stress level this week, on a scale of 1 to 10, was about a 20!

We're trying to have Allie see all our family before we go, since we don't really know when she will be back. Last night, we babysat my brother's kids and they all played Lego Rock Band together for a while. Tonight, my sister is coming with her family to make cookies and have dinner and tomorrow we will try to make the rounds to visit Alex's family. I am very proud of Alex and the way he is handling this. He was devastated when he found out yet he is still putting on a happy face to Allie. Allie is excited to be moving (what kid wouldn't be? They are moving 20 minutes from the beach and Disneyland) and Alex is trying to be positive and tolerate Allie's excitement and lack of caring about the fact that she is hardly going to see her dad anymore. I think his belief is - as well as mine - that it will probably take about a month for the excitement to wear off and the reality of never getting to see her dad to kick in. How could it not? Allie was complaining here about wanting to spend more time with her dad (to which her mom always refused, of course!) and now she might see him once a month? I'm actually pretty surprised that her mom didn't think of this earlier. She is now getting what she has fought for the last eight years - Allie is now going to spend less time with her dad.