Met with the mediator yesterday and got the final report of the parental agreement (aka Custody arrangements). The ex tried to pull some last minute bs and was promptly put in his place (the mediator told him he needs to remember that everything can't be what he wants, that my needs are just as valid and that I've been very patient and extremely accommodating and if he keeps this up I could just throw in the towel, say screw it and take him to court). Can I say how much I loved the mediator?
So that's a huge thing I don't have to worry about anymore. Now it just has to be put into legal-eez and he can't change anything without the consent of the mediator and myself.
So how will you two divide custody of your chidren?
Well, it's rather complicated. What I had suggested was straightforward. The ex wanted a 5 weekend rotation schedule which I eventually went along with since his original idea was to keep the kids apart except for 2 weekends a month "until mokeyboy proves that he can behave more appropriately"
So basically what happens is that he takes monkeygirl to school every day and I pick her up at the end of school. She then stays with me and monkeyboy until 6:30pm. Then the ex will take her to his house. This does make sense from the aspect of morning routines because monkeyboy is homeschooled and the ex has always been the one to take her to school.
Then over the course of 5 weekends, the kids each have one weekend alone with each parent (I have monkeygirl, he has monkey boy for a whole weekend and then we swap), they have 1 weekend together with me and 2 weekends together with Dad.
The reason why this isn't such a bad thing is because I have monkeygirl for most of her waking hours unless she's at school. So I'm still a big influence. My beef with the ex is that he doesn't spend quality time with the kids. He says that due to monkeyboys autism we (being the parents) should never have the kids 2:1 because he's too unpredictable and can't be handled. That is the biggest load of bullshit i've ever heard. From everything he said in mediation, he basically wants to take the autism out of him. he doesn't like being one on one with monkeyboy because he can't just do whatever the hell he wants. So every time monkeyboy and monkeygirl are with him, so are all of my inlaws.
So the time they're with me, which is a significant amount, they can just be brother and sister and our time is more relaxed. The ex takes them lots of great places, but he constantly has them running around everywhere and never just lets them be, yanno?
Although the upside is the my mother in law is pretty good with the kids, she gets Spencer and have her around means the chances of the ex doing more damage are definitely less. Monkeyboy has really let go of his Dad. he doesn't expect much from him and all he cares about is that he can live with me. He loves his Dad immensely but he doesn't trust him. That's a sad state of affairs.