The Tommy plan is for him to drive back from Knoxville to Boston with his father on Sunday. He’ll stay there until the 21st (that’s the last day for cheap flights and I insisted Tommy be home for Christmas) when his father is in charge of making sure he gets to his flight safely and on time. The flight stops in DC and has a 2 hour layover. The budget airline would only “tell him his gate number” and having been to the DC airport, I don’t think he’d make it onto the second plane without getting distracted. So, I am flying to DC to meet him when he gets off his first plane. I am going to be spending 6 hours sitting around the DC airport. If I only had a wi-fi laptop to pass the time.
Tommy hasn’t spent more than 5 days with his father in the past 8 years so we are hopeful that his father will stop blaming us for all Tommy’s problems and realize that Tommy is a very difficult child. The thing most in our favor is my ex’s girlfriend is not going to be willing to ignore Tommy like his father will. She is always reminding my ex that they live in “her” house. At the very least, the other children are going to have a week and a half of calm, normal childhood. On the other hand, I’ll be worried sick.
But will 40-year-old man who sings in a bar band and thinks he’s “on the verge of making it big” just ignore Tommy? Or will Tommy sleep all day and surf the net all night while eating everything in sight, never asked to bathe or do any of the schoolwork he’ll be taking with him?
Maybe it will give his father some idea of what you deal with 24/7 365. It might also give Tommy some appreciation of how much better home is. Enjoy your week, his father is an adult and will have to act like a father for a little while.
Yikes. I don’t even know Tommy and I’m worried that his “father” will have no clue how to deal with him. I hope he’s not the type that thinks all a kid needs is a good pounding to set him straight. I think your projection of what will go on is probably accurate though.